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JAINA PSYCHOLOGY prove the existence of omniscience. "The proof of omniscience follows from the proof of the necessity of the final consummation of the progressive development of cognition.'1 The progressive development of knowledge must reach its completion somewhere, because this is the way of all progression, as seen in the progression of magnitude. Just as heat is subject to varying degrees and con- . sequently reaches the highest limit, so also cognition which is subject to progressive development owing to various degrees of dissociation of the obscuring veil, reaches the highest limit. i.e., omniscience when the hindrance of the obscuring karma is totally annihilated.
The Mimārsakas, as we have already indicated, are not prepared to accept the possibility of the occurrence of omniscience. To refute the idea of omniscience, the Mimāṁsaka asks: What does omniscience mean? Does it mean the cognition of all the objects of the universe? Or does it mean merely the prehension of certain principal objects? As regards the first alternative, does it mean the knowledge of all the objects of the universe in succession or simultaneously. In the former case there can be no omniscience, inasmuch as the objects of the world in the shape of past, present, and future can never be exhausted. This being the fact, the cognition conditioned by them also can never be complete. Because of the impossibility of the knowledge of all the objects of the world there cannot be omniscience. In the latter case also there can be no omniscience. It is an established fact that all the objects of the world are impossible to be known at one and the same time. How is it possible to prehend contradictory things like heat and cold at one and the same time on the strength of 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 a 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
i Prajñātiśayaviśrantyādisiddhestatsiddih.
Pramāņa-mimāmsā, I, I, 16.
