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MÌMĀMSAKAS' OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
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It is further urged that if the omniscient being cognises everything, he must also have the experience of attachment, aversion, etc. in others, and thetefore will be influenced and contaminated by them. Consequently he would cease to be omniscient because attachment and aversion are obstructions to right cognition.45 The reply to this objection is simple. Mere knowledge of desires, aversions etc. is not sufficient to make a person tainted by them unless the self is transformed into the very mode of attachment, etc. One cannot be affected by those desires and simply by knowing them, for instance, one does not die by simply seeing the poison, or one does not drink wine by hearing the world 'wine'46 or simply because one knows about the ingredients of the drink.47 Besides, desires and aversions are produced by our impure mental states and senses and not by the self which is pure and perfect. Knowledge is different from active participation, 48
At this point, the difference between the Jainas and the Buddhist approaches are worth consideration. The Buddhist position can be interpreted to mean that all such objections arise only if we believe that the external world exists and is the object and cause of attachments. But attchments are the results of ignorance like the illusory perception of the second moon.49 This is the typical Yogācāra view. But the Jainas being realists do not accept this explanation. They think that the omniscient being is above desires and aversions and hence it cannot be tainted by them in any way merely because it knows them. The Buddhists, therefore, according to the Jainas, do not explain the facts of unclean or impure states of things but explain them away by advocating the unreality of the external world. 45 Prabhācandra, Prame ya-kamala-mārtanda, p. 254; Šāntarakṣita, Ibid.,
3315. 46 Prabhācandra, Ibid., 260. 47 M. K. Jaina, Jaina-darśana, p. 313. 48 Ibid., pp. 311-312. 49 Kamalaśīla, Pañ jikā, on Tattva-sangraha, 3318-19, JCO-24 For Private & Personal Use Only
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