Jaina Concept of Omniscience

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

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CLASSIFICATION AND CATEGORISATION
doubt, true that it was the explicit aim of Jainism to rebel against the Upanisadic tradition, but it is wrong to think that the Jainas disagreed with everything in the Upanişads. This conception of the self knowledge as the knowledge of basic reality is one in which the Jainas are very close to the Upanişadic trend of thinking inspite of their disclaimer that they are opposed to the basic ideas of the Upanişadic philosophy metaphysics and theology.
There is also another sense in which the Jainas use the term 'omniscience'. In this sense, it means the knowledge of the essential principles and not knowledge of concrete details. Ācārānga says, “He who knows one, knows all. ”19 This passage when read in the actual context refers to the knowledge of passions ( Kaşāyas ) which hinder right knowlege. The “ One ” referred to here, therefore, means knowledge of some essential moral principle. Pt. Sukhalālaji, who is one of the most important and modern exponents of this view of omniscience tries to interpret Mahāvīra's statement addressed to Jamāli in such a way that would give support to his position. Mahāvīra said to Jamāli that right-knowledge could be had only if things are known from the points of view of both substances and modes.20 Sukhalālaji reads into this utterance the view that only he is omniscient who adopts both these points of view. This statement, however, has to be distinguished from an analogous statement emphasising the knowledge of all substances and all modes. If omniscience means knowledge of all substances and all modes, then it becomes knowledge of all things and therefore this view of omniscience will be the same as the second view which Sukhalālaji does not accept. But Sukhalālají does not make it clear
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Ācāranga Sutra, I. 3.4. Bhagavati Sūtra, IX. 6. “From the point of view of substance, the world is eternal; from the point of view of modes, it is non-eternal”. Rcal knowledge is knowledge of both substance and their modes and not of either substance alone or of modes alone. Cf. Syadvada Mañjari, K. 13-14; 16-19.