Jaina Concept of Omniscience

Author(s): Ramjee Singh
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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THE MEANING OF OMNISCIENCE
difficulties in defining the term 'omniscience'. It is necessary, therefore, to analyse the concept thoroughly so that we can arrive at its correct definition
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We can start our analysis by asking whether omniscience is false or true knowledge? If it is the former, it is sheer delusion but if it is the latter, we can ask further whether it is knowledge of only the important things or of all the things? If it is the former, it is not omniscience in the sense it is restricted in scope, but if the latter, it raises a further question: Is it the knowledge of all objects without or with their attributes? If the first alternative is the case, it lacks the "knowledge of attributes". Besides, it raises many metaphysical issues, such as whether or not an object can be known without knowing its attributes or whether objects and their attributes are so separable in knowledge even if not in reality. I shall not, however, discuss such points at this stage of analysis. Rather, I shall mean by knowledge, knowledge of objects with their attributes. But this sense also raises another question, whether omniscience is knowledge of of all objects with some or all of their attributes. If we accept the first alternative its scope is again limited. If we accept the second, we are faced with a further problem: Is such a knowledge restricted only to some particular place or to all the places? If the former, it ceases to be omniscience being spatially limited, but if the latter, we must answer, whether this knowledge covers the entire present or the entire span of time, i.e., past, present and future. In the former case, it cannot be omniscience being restricted to the present only. In the latter case, we are faced with another difficulty. Is such a knowledge existing in any moment of time successive or simultaneous ? If it is successive, there cannot be omniscience, since in this way the knowledge of all the objects with all their attributes at all the places and at all the times can never be exhausted and the knowledge so conditioned would never be completed But if it is simultaneous, there would be another difficulty. Is it obtained by a single cognition