Jaina Concept of Omniscience

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

Page 89

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SOUL-PSYCHOLOGY AND OMNISCIENCE
tween sense and the mind and finally between the mind and the soul. They do regard soul as the substratum of all cognition but they maintain that self and cognition are two different things. Soul is, therefore, inherently devoid of all cognition. This fact is also reflected in the state of the final liberation. But the15 Jainas argue that if cognition is absolutely different from the soul, knowledge will be well-nigh impossible because they will always remain unrelated. Even the hypothesis of an inherent relationship between the two will not do.
There seems to be an appreciable amount of truth in the Jaina contention. In fact, the problem involved here is the one to which Bradley draws our attention in his criticism of the concepts of the substance and quality. If quality is different from the substance, i.e., if the relation between the quality and substance is external, then the attempt to relate the one to the other is bound to be an infinite regress. Using Bradley's general arguments agiiast substance and quality, one can say in refutation to the Nyāya-Vaisaşika position that if knowledge is an external quality of the soul, no intermediary link will be able to bridge the gulf between the two without producing an infinite regress. The Jainas do not put their arguments exactly in this way, but it can be reconstructed out of what has been said by them. It cannot also be said that since the soul is the agent (Kartā) and cognition the instrument (Karana the distinction between the two is necessary. Their relation is like that of eye and the vision and not like that of lamp and vision. :. Knowledge is in fact identical with the soul, though it has different types of modes,“ just as a serpent is identical with the coil of his body that he mikes. "16 This views of consciousness and self is also corroborated by actual experience,
15 Nyaya Mañ jari, p. 77. 16 Syadvāda Mañjāri, p. 43. (Anyayoga-Vyàvacched1.D vatrimšika Com.
on verse 8).