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THE ESSENCE OF JAINA SCRIPTURES
38. The modifications, which have not yet originated, and those which after origination have disappeared. Those non-existent modifications are yet directly perceptible (pratyaksha) to knowledge.
The modifications which do not yet partake of origination, and those which have gone to annihilation after having originated what they are, are although non-existent, well-defined with reference to mental-distinction and therefore liable to immediate-perception by means of knowledge; so then they are existent, since their characteristic nature has been planted firmly, like past and future gods hewn out in stone columns.
Now he confirms this fact that non-existent things can be perceived by knowledge:
39. If a not yet arisen and an annihilated modification were not directly perceptible to knowledge, who would call that knowledge divine (divya)?
If knowledge does not (insert na before karoti) cause the whole set of modifications, with their forms-of-being not yet experienced or previously experienced, to be bound to the self, whilst it in force invades (akramya) these modifications with its great power of splendour, opening out without impediment and unbroken, so that the entirety of their characteristic-natures is simultaneously (akrama) delivered up, how could there be any divinity in this knowledge? Therefore all this is possible for discernment, when it reaches the highest point.
Now he examines how sensorial knowledge cannot know that which has passed or has not yet arisen:
40. Those who, by means of iha ("the readiness to know more"), etc., know the object present to the senses are not capable of knowing that which transcends the senses; thus it is taught.
Those who, accepting "contact" of objects and sense-organs, i.e. a coming together of the object-of-perception (vishaya) and the perceiver-of-the-object (vishayi), distinguish by means of iha, etc., which arise successively, cannot distinguish the concrete-existence (svastitva) which has passed, nor the time of the concrete-existence not yet arisen, owing to the impossibility (in this case) of the described relation of "thing-to-be-grasped" (grahya) and "grasper."
Now he states that everything that may be mentioned falls under the reach of supra-sensorial knowledge:
