Jain Journal 1990 07

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

Page 30

JULY, 1990
25
but from the word "kāma', it is manifest that this power of unrestricted movement is dependent upon his desire'. Similarly, it is not true that all the things and the phenomena of the world, past, present, future, subtle, near, distant etc. are simultaneously and actually and always present in the consciousness of the emancipated jiva. Its supernatural attainment consists in the fact that unlike a soul in bondage, it can know them, whenever it likes. Let us explain the position by an example. It is not a fact that his ancestors are always present before a liberated being or in his mind. Whenever he wants to see them, they appear before him at once.
sa yadā pity-lõka-kāmo bhavati, samkalpädevāsya pitarah samutişthanti
--Chandogya-Upanisat., 8.2 1.
The omniscience of a liberated soul thus consists in the fact that it has the power to know at once, whatever it wants to know and not that all the cosmic things and phenomena are ever present in its consciousness. The omniscience of the Lord, however, is not of this sort. His omniscience is eternal ; in it are ever present all the objects and occurrences of all times and places. The liberated soul has not this kind of omniscience, this is the view of the Vedantists of the Dvaita or dualistic, the Dvaitadvaita or dualistico-monist and the Visistadvaita or differentiated monistic schools. The Advaita or the absolutely monistic schools of the Vedanta also attribute such an omniscience to the highly developed worshippers of the Saguna Brahma and we believe, such an omniscience, and nothing more than that, has been said to be attainable in the samūhālambana of the Nyaya, the ārsa-jñana of the Vaisesika, the prātibha of the Sankhya and the Yoga and the yogipratyaksa of the Buddhist.
The Liberated State and Omniscience : The Jaina View
That the unliberated jiva's wandering in the samsāra are not omniscient is a matter of common experience and has been admitted in the Jaina philosophy, just in all other systems. There is a remarkable unanimity between the Jaina's who repudiate the authority of the Veda's and the Mimamsaka's who are firm supporters of the Vedic orthodoxy and ritualism, regarding the doctrines that the jivas have been wandering from the beginningless time in the samsāra, driven by the forces of their karmas and that there is no Creator of this universe. But although the Jainas agree with the Mimamsakas in admitting the inexorableness