Jain Journal 1990 07

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

Page 36

JULY, 1990
in some other way. Already some constituents of protoplasm like nucleic acid have been synthesised. For the present we have to fall back upon the hypothesis that a pure soul is all knowledge and all things and events are automatically reflected in its past, present and the future. In other words, pure soul means perfect knowledge. According to Jaina school of thought, as a mundane soul gradually purifies itself more and more its power of knowing the truth increases and when it becomes fully purified the whole Truth dawns upon him automatically just as a mirror begins to reflect things when dust is wiped off from its surface; that is, we can know the truth by Eye Divine or divya-dṛṣṭi. This is one way of knowing the truth where there are no chances of making any mistake through illusion. The second method is the method adopted by the modern science, viz., experimental. Experiments are performed by different people all over the world; and if they arrive at the same result, the conclusion drawn is regarded as correct or true. Even some scientists of today are of opinion that the experimental method is not the only method of arriving at the truth.
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Without going into philosophical implications of omniscience as defined by Jaina Acaryas, I am giving below some points in answer to a question once asked by a friend, 'What evidence is there to prove that the Jaina Tirthankaras were Omniscient' ?
The ancient writers, like the author of Nandi Sūtra, have tried to overawe us by saying that the Fourteen Purvas which constitute a negligible portion of the entire Jaina canon, required such a huge sea of ink into which over sixteen thousand elephants, one mounted over the other, would be completely submerged or that it will take a few billion years to utter the twelve Angas of Jina-vānī at the rate of a few thousand words per minute. Naturally, words spoken so fast would lose their intelligibility and would appear like a row of thunder. So, they said that the entire body of a Tirthankara vibrates and the sound produced is inarticulate which is analysed into different languages of human beings, and those of birds and beasts, as if by some natural process akin to the mechanical process adopted in the meetings of the United Nations where the talk of a speaker in any language is automatically analysed and heard in the language of one's choice.
In the modern age of science, arguments of the above type would be regarded as silly to prove the perfection of knowledge of any person on earth. But the whole problem cannot be dismissed cursorily. We take points one after an other.