Jain Journal 1977 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 21

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JAIN JOURNAL
(säyujya), becomes possessed of such supernaturalities as omniscience.
etc.
Saguņa-vidyā-vipāka-sthānantvetat
--Sūtra-bhāşye, 4-4-16
Liberation and Omniscience: The Buddhist
The Stage Penultimate to View
sarvajñah sugato buddhah dharma-rāja-stathāgatah
The word, sarvajña in the above list of Buddha's names shows that although omniscience, according to him, is impossible in a mundane being or in a being who has entered the nirvāṇa, it is possible in a person, in a certain stage of mental development. Neither sensuous knowledge nor inference can yield omniscience for, not only is the range of such forms of knowledge limited but they are after all vague and indistinct Without a full and clear knowledge of objects the knower cannot be said to have attained omniscience. This perfect and the clearest possible knowledge about all the things of the universe has been called the sphutābha knowledge by the Buddhist thinkers. According to them, the sphutābha is due to a direct perception which is peculiar to sages' (yogipratyakşa). The ordinary knowledge about objects which we get through the pramāņa or empiric sources of knowledge is bhūtārtha and to contemplate the bhūtārtha again and again is bhūtārtha-bhāvana. As a result of the bhūtārtha-bhāvana the knowledge of its object comes to be clearer and clearer. The bhūtārtha-bhāvana has various stages, but these do not yield the full and the perfect knowledge about things, until the last stage, bhāvanā-prakarsa-paryanta, is reached. From the bhāvanā-prakarşa-paryanta is evolved a direct apprehension about objects in the mind of the sage, which is called the yogi-pratyakşa— the perception of a sage.
bhūtārtha-bhāvanā-prakarsa-paryantajam yogi-jñānam ceti
-Nyāya-Vindu, Paricchedah 1
The three forms of perception, viz., sense-perception (indriya-jñāna), internal perception (mānasa-pratyakşa), and self-perception (svasamvedana) cannot yield omniscience; neither can inference (anumāna) yield it. For, all these modes of cognition are imperfect and indistinct. The fourth mode of perception, according to the Buddhists, is the yogipratyakşa; which we have just noticed, however, that even the perceptual stage, penultimate to the yogi-pratyakşa,--the bhūtārtha-bhāvanāprakarsa-paryanta,does not give perfect and the clearest possible