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INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Buddha accepts knowing-all and seeing-all in the second sense, that is, in the sense of knowing and seeing whatever one desires to know and see by undertaking proper type of meditation. This means that through specific spiritual discipline one develops a capacity (labdhi or siddhi) to know-all and see-all. But he never knows all things simultaneously, nor does he ever see all things simultaneously. He knows and sees that thing only which he desires to know at a particular time, and that too only if he enters into proper meditation.
Like Patañjali and Vyāsa Buddha accepts that one can attain the capacity (labdhi) to know all and see all, But he differs from them in holding that the person who has attained this capacity can neyer know all things simultaneously, nor can he see all things simultaneously, but he can know and see whatever he wants to know and see at that particular time. As we have already noted, Patañjali and Vyāsa maintained that the person who has attained this capacity can actually know all things simultaneously and can actually see all things simultaneously. But there is one more point of agreement. According to Patañjali and Vyāsa, the person who has attained this capacity knows all things simultaneously and sees all things simultaneously not always. but only if and when he performs a special type of samyama (= dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi all the three). Even Buddha seems to maination that the person who has attained this capacity can actually know and see whatever he wants to know and see at a particular time provided he performs proper meditations. Let us note one more point of agreement. All the three, viz. Patañjali, Vyāsa and Buddha reject the possibility of actually knowing all things successively and actually seeing all things successively.
This interpretation of ours is corroborated by the statements of later Buddhist authors. Nāgasena in his Milindapañho says : bhante, buddho sabbaññü'ti Il āma mahārāja, bhagavā sabbhaññā, na ca bhagavato satatam samitam ñanadassanam paccupatthitam, āvajjanapatibaddham bhagavato sabbañutañānam, āvajjitvā yad icchitam jānāti'ti 18 Again, study the following statement of Santarakṣita : yad yad icchati boddhum vā tat tad vetti niyogatah/ Saktir evamvidhā hy asya prahīņāvarano hy asau II (Tattvasangraha, kārikā 3626).
Buddha and Buddhism do not put undue emphasis on and do not attach undue importance to knowing-all and seeing-all though they accept them in the above sense. They, in opposition to Mimāmsā, maintain that man is capable of knowing and seeing dharma - spiritual
