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OUTLINES OF JAINA PHILOSOPHY
because this is the way of all progression, as seen in the progression of magnitude. Just as heat is subject to varying degrees and consequently reaches the highest limit, so also cognition which is subject to progressive development owing to the various degrees of destruction of the obscuring veil, reaches the highest limit, i.e., omniscience when the hindrance of the obscuring karma is totally annihilated.
The Mīmāṁsakas are not prepared to accept the possibility of the occurrence of omniscience. To refute the theory of omniscience, the Mimāmsaka asks: What does omniscience mean? Does it mean the cognition of all the objects of the universe ? Or does it mean merely the comprehension 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 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 person 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
