Jain Journal 1990 07

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

Page 26

JULY, 1990
21
This supernatural power of vision in the yogis is practically omniscience. Thus although the Sankhya philosophers do not believe divine omniscience nor in the omniscience of a liberated being, they admit the possibility of omniscience in the yogis or persons on the high way to self-culture.
The Stage Penultimate to Liberation and Omniscience : The Nya ya and the Vaišesika Views
The thinkers of the Nyaya school maintain that it is impossible for the instrument (karana) of knowledge to be simultaneously connected with more than one percept ; for this reason, a simultaneous cognition of all things is impossible according to them. But they admit that the recollections of all things or cause of the cognitions of all things, may simultaneously present themselves to a sage, when he may be possessed of a knowledge which relates to the whole collection of the objects. Such a knowledge has been called by them samūhālambana or collective knowledge. This samūhālambana is practically identical with the pratibha' knowledge noticed before and consists in a sort of omniscience.
The Vaisesika thinkers have given the name ārşa-jñana or 'the knowledge of a seer' to the prātibha which relates to the knowledge of all things.
The Stage Penultimate to Liberation and Omniscience : The Advaita Vedanta View
Omniscience is impossible in both a liberated and an unliberated soul, according to the absolute monist school of the Vedanta philosophy. But it is possible in a highly developed sage. It is said that a Naiyayika in order to test the profoundness of Sankara's knowledge, once asked him to explain the difference between the conceptions of liberation, of the Nyaya and the Vaisesika schools. The questioning Naiyayika was a very concrited person and so addressed Sankara as follows:
vada sarvaviccet no cet pratijñām tyaja sarvavittve
-Samkşepa-Samkara-Vijayah
If you are Omniscient, answer the question ; if not, give up your contention about omniscience.