Jaina Concept of Omniscience

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

Page 38

THE OMNISCIENT BEING
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produced by contact with name and form (ātmaviśesaguņānāmatyant occhedah) or, as Sridhara would say, the destruction of nine specific qualities (navānām ātmavisesa gunānām atyantocchedah Mok şah) that liberation is possible. Thus, the state, of Mokşa, in both Nyāya and Vaiseșika comes perilously near the unconscious condition of a pebble or a piece of stone, as is the criticism of the Cārvākas. To the Mimāmsakas also, the state of literation is free from pleasure and pain. Consciousness is an adventitious quality of the soul and knowledge of objects is due to the activities of the manas and the senses. According to the Prābhākaras, liberation is not even a state of bliss, since attributeless soul cannot have even bliss. Moksa is therefore simply the natural state of the soul (svātmasphuranarūpah).55 According to the Bhattas, however, Moksa is the realisation of the intrinsic happiness (ātmasaukhyānubhūti) but Pārtha Sārthi Miśra 59 and Gangābharța deny this against Nārāyana Miśra, Bhatta Sarvajña and Sucaritra Miśra. We can conclude that since the soul is regarded as consciousness associated with ignorance (ajñānopahitacaitanyātmavāda) in the state of Mukti, omniscience is co-existent with it.
However, this is not the case with other systems like Sārkhya, Yoga, Vedānta, Jaina etc. According to these systems, consciousness is not a mere quality but very essence of the soul. Freedom consists in full manifestation of the glory of the self. According to Sānkhya-Yoga, it is only when we can effect a cessation of the link with matter that the state of absolute isolation and redirection of our consciousness is possible. There is, however, a clear ambivalence in Sārkhyadoctrine of release in so far as it maintains that “it is the spirit that is to obtain release, and yet the apparently predomi
55 śālikānātha, Prakarana Pañcika, P. 157. 56 Mišrā Pārtha Sārathi, Sastra-di pikā (with commentaries of Somanatha
and Rāmakrişna) (Bombay, 1915), pp. 125–30. JCO-4