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JAINA PHILOSOPHY : AN INTRODUCTION
How is it possible to comprehend contradictory things like heat and cold at the same time by a single cognition ? Besides, if all the objects are known at one and the same instant by an omniscient soul, in the next moment it would become unconscious having nothing to cognise. And further, the omniscient would be tainted by the attachment etc. of others in cognising them. Consequently, he would cease to be omniscient, since attachment and the like are obstructions to right cognition. Thus, it is established that omniscience does not mean the cognition of all the objects of the universe either successively or simultaneously. On the other hand, it cannot be admitted that omniscience means the cognition of certain principal objects, since only when all the objects of the universe are known, the distinction of principal objects from subordinate objects can be established. Furthermore, it is an impossibility to have the cognition of the past and future which are, really speaking, non-existent. If the omniscient cognises the past and future which are non-existent, his knowledge would be illusory and wrong. If the past and future are known as existent, they are converted into the present. If the past and future are known by the omniscient as present, his knowledge again would be illusory. Hence, logically no existence of omniscience can be established.'
All these objections advanced by the Mīmāmsaka are refuted by the Jaina as follows: Our ordinary perceptions are produced by the sense-organs, and hence, they are incapable of cognising the past, the future and the like. But such is not the case with the omniscient. The perception of an omniscient self is not produced by the sense-organs, hence, it can know supra-sensory objects. It is not produced in succession but simultaneously, and hence, it cognises all the objects of the universe at the same time. It is beyond the limitations of space
I. Prameya-kamala-mārtanda, p.254. 2. Ibid., pp. 260-1.
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