Jaina Concept of Omniscience

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

Page 44

THE NON-BELIEVERS IN OMNISCIENCE
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has "lips that stammer”.? Mahāvira employs two terms 'Ignorant' and 'Perplexed' (annāņa=ignorance, vitigiccha=perple. xity) for agnostics; Buddha's expression is Eel Wriggling (Amarāvikkhepa)' which signifies being "indifferent” or having neutral attitude towards metaphysical problems. Accord. ing to Sañjaya “the same philosopher tends to be an agnostic when he freely confesses his inability to know the ultimate beginning and end of things, which virtually amounts to accepting the existence of the unknown and unknowable; and a sceptic “when he doubts or hesitates to admit the correctness of all told assertions about matters beyond human cognition."10 The tendency of Sañjaya's teaching was sceptical or agnostic, but “it seems to have been not a morose but healthy agnosticism,"11 tased on studious evasion or suspension of judgments over the vital metaphysical questions. Hence the Buddhist and the Jaina accounts describing Sañjaya as an “intellectual coward ”12 exhibit only mutual hostility. Sañjaya and other leaders of the “sophistic movement "18 of the "Age of Post-Upanisadic Ferment”14 were “discussed and stubbornly hated and refuted by both Mahāvīra and Gotama Buddha,"15 which are amply found in Brahmanical
7 Jacobi H. (tr.), Gaina-Sutra (Oxford, Sacred Book of the East Series,
Clarendon), Part II, p. XXVI (Introd). 8 Ibid., Sutra-Kștānga, I. 12.2. 9 Digha-Nikāya, ed. Kashyap J. (Nalanda Pali Publishing Board, 1958),
I. 28; I. 58. 10 Baruā B. M. A History of Pre-Buddhistic Indian Philosophy (Calcutta,
Calcutta University, 1921), pp. 323-324. 11 Belvalkar S. K. and Ranade R. D., History of Indian Philosophy
(The Creative Period), (Poona, B.O.R.I., 1927), Vol. II, p. 454 12 Barua B. M., Ibid., p. 330 13 W. Rhys Davids Buddhist India (London, 1903), p. 247 14 Belvalkar & Ranade, Ibid., p. 445 15 Mehta R. N. Pre-Buddhist India (Bombay, Examiner's Press, 1939),
p. 334,