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14) Critique of Knowledge
105
Bhavastha omniscience is again of two types as i) Sayogi and ii) Ayogi. There are sub-divisions in both these. Similarly Siddha omniscience is of two types as i) Anantara-kevala and ii) Paramparā-kevala, each having its sub-divisions. 124
The Jaina view of omniscience may be compared to the Nyaya view of the divine knowledge, "a6 and the Yoga theory of divine perception.196 Divine knowledge is all-embracing intuition. It is perceptual in character as it is direct and as it is not derived thorugh the instrumentality of any other cognition. The divine perception grasps the past, the present and the future in one eternal 'now'. The soul, according to the Jaina, is itself divine and perfect and there is no other transcendental being than the individual soul. Each soul is a God by itself although it is obscured by the Karmic veil in its empirical state. The Kaivalyastate; of the individual soul may be compared to the divine omniscience. However, the Naiyāyikas and Pratañjali accept that man has sometimes the flash of the intuition of the future, and he can attain omniscience by constant meditation and the practice of austerities. The Jainas believe that the removal of obscuring Karmas by meditation, threefold path and self-control, the individual soul reaches the consummation of omniscience, the state of Kaivalya. That is the finality and the end. But others like the Naiyāyikas posit a divine omniscience which is higher, natural and eternal.
It is not possible to establish the possibility of omniscience on the basis of empirical methods of investigation which psychology and empirical science follow. However, its logical possibility cannot be denied. Progressive realization of greater and subtler degrees of knowledge by the individual is accepted by some psychologists especially with the introduction of Psychical Research for analysing extra-sensory perception. A consummation of this progressive realization would logically be pure knowledge and omniscience, a single all-embracing intuition.
124. Nandi Sutra Gath, XIXX, 19-23 and discussion. 125, Nyaya Manjari, p. 200.
126. Yoga-Sūtra I, 24.
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