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JAINISM
such as souls, dharma, adharma, space, and time is beyond the scope of clairvoyance. So only those things which have shape, colour and extension can be peceived in clairvoyance.
Different people are considered to possess varying capacities for clairvoyance. The differences are attributable to the fact that the kārmic veils responsible for man's limitations in his capacity for direct perception are not removed by all men simultaneously. Hence men being in the different stages of successfully getting over the limitations imposed on them by their own karmas, their capacities also show wide divergences. The lowest capacity for clairvoyance signifies man's capacity to perceive objects possessing the minimum possible space and to penetrate the smallest conceivable point of time. Qualitatively the best type of clairvoyance is the one in which there is the perception of objects occupying an infinite number of space-points and the penetration into countless number of cycles of time, both past and future. It should be noted here that with the increase in capacity for time-penetration, the capacity for space-penetration (and along with it the capacity for comprehending more number of material atoms and more number of modes) also increases but not vice versa.
The rationale of the argument, according to Tatia, is this: “A time-point is more extensive as compared with a space-point and so it is held that it is easier to extend over one space-point than to penetrate one time-point. So it is conceived that temporal penetration is necessarily accompanied with spatial extension. But the
everse is not true. As each space-point can contain an infinite number of atoms, and each atom has an infinite number of modes,
t is conceived that with the increase of scope in space, there is necessarily an increase in the number of things and their modes that are comprehended, but the comprehension of a greater number of things and modes not necessarily involve more penetration into time and extension in space. Comprehension of a greater number of things and modes may be due to clarity of the intuition as well and this is another reason why it does not necessarily involve spatial or temporal extension.”3
Even in the best type of clairvoyance, however, not all modes
1 Tattvārtha-Sūtra, 1.28 2 See Avaśyakanir yukti, 36 3 See Studies in Jainism, p. 64
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