Nyaya Science of Thought

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 15

THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT.
Therefore, all souls are endowed with potential omniscience.
Some people think that it would be more conducive to their peace of mind to have only one omniscient soul, but this is untenable on the ground that souls being pure spirit in reality, the essential nature of one must naturally and necessarily be the essential nature of all others. Thus, there would be no differences in the possibility of development in respect of knowledge among different souls, although they might differ from one another in so far as its actual manifestation is concerned.
Thus, the positing of only one omniscient soul together with a large number of those with limited knowledge is clearly an instance of illogical thought. There can be differences in the quality or function of beings only if they differ from one another in respect of their substantive nature, but the fact that consciousness is common to them all, including the one postulated omniscient soul, shows that they are not different from one another in that respect.
There remains the possibility of our postulating the presence of an extra conscious quality in the one omniscient soul, but even this supposition does not advance its case any further, because pure spirit is not a compound but a simple substance, or reality. Nor can it be called a compound without