New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

Author(s): Mahaprajna Acharya, Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Today and Tommorrow Printers and Publishers

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New Dirjensions in Jaina Logic
such other tools cease to function. But it would be more precise to say that mind, seech etc. are not actively involved in such perception.
The omniscient never reverts to the state of ordinary perception. Persons in ordinary E.S.P. do not exercise their mental cognition, but their mind is not non-existent. And this is the reason why such percipient can transfer his experience to the mental level. As a result the experiences of the state of E.S.P. are converted into an inheritance of the mental domian.
Question 9. It has been said that it is the omniscient who is Agama and enjoys absolute validity. But the question is, does the omniscient exercise his vocal organ or not? If not, his knowledge will be only a personal experience and, as such, such experience would not be designated as knowledge by others. If, on the other hand, the omniscient gives expression to his knowledge through the services of his vocal organ, then his vocal activity itself should be regarded as pramana (valid knowledge), which is nothing more than what we call struta jñāna (scriptural knowledge). Again the words, simply by themselves, cannot be regarded as pramāna. Some agency over and above the mere words should be accepted as giving authority to the scriptural knowledge.
Answer. As the words of others through syllogisti: inference are authoritative for others, so the words of the omniscient are also authoritative for us. The words by themselves have no authority, but as expression of knowledge, they enjoy such authority. An ordinary reliable person who has seen with his own eyes a lion in the forest makes a report to the effect that he has seen a lion in the forest. In this case we know about the lion even without direct perception or inference. The omniscient is an extra-ordinary reliable person, and thus his words are also competent to give us knowledge of objects neither capable of being perceived nor capable of being inferred or known through any other valid source of knowledge.
Whatever is uttered by the omniscient is an exercise of his vocal organ. We know the meaning through his words and such knowledge is called bhāvaśruta. The word of the omniscient is instrumental to our bhāvaśruta and as such is called dravyaśruta (i.e. the physical corpus of the scripture capable of giving us the experience of the omniscient himself).