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OCTOBER, 1976
the Prakrti remains proximate to it. The soul, however, is absolutely incompatible; there cannot be any real connection of the Praksti with it. It is owing to aviveka or ignorance that the essentially incorruptible Puruşa is looked upon as affected or influenced by the Praksti.
nihsangehpyuparagoh vivekāt
-Sānkhya Sūtram : Tanträrtha-Samkşepadhyāya, 28
When a red flower is held over a glass-ware, the shade of redness falls upon the latter and makes it appear as red, but the real nature of the glass-ware is not modified in the least thereby. In the same manner, proximate-ness of the Praksti to the Puruşa makes no change in the essential nature of the latter.
jabā-sphatikariva noparāgah kincitābhimanah
- Ibid., 29
It is thus that owing to aviveka, the soul is considered to be in bondage when the Prakrti is near it and that it is said to be emancipated when the Praktti is no longer near it. Really there is no relation whatsoever between the Puruşa on the one hand and the Prakrti with its evolutes on the other. When a soul is liberated, it is even impossible to imagine a connection. The liberated Puruşa cannot thus be said to be omniscient or a knower of all things, according to the principles of the Sankhya and the Yoga systems.
It is consequently clear that the Buddhist and the Vedic systems agree that not only are the mundane souls not omniscient but that the liberated and he finally disembodied souls also are not such.
The Stage Penultimate to Liberation and Omniscience: The Yoga View
Although neither a mundane soul nor an emancipated being is omniscient, a soul on the way to liberation may be possessed of a kind of knowledge, just before its final emancipation, which may be called omniscience. The author of the Yoga-Sūtras calls it prātibha and the Sankhya also believes in its possibility. According to Patanjali, one possessed of the prātibha has the knowledge of all things.
prātibhād vā sarvam
:-Yoga-Sūtram, Bibhūti-pādah, 34
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