Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): S Gopalan
Publisher: Wiley Eastern Private Limited New Delhi

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JAINISM
In regard to āgama (authority) the Mīmāṁsaka's position is that only those portions of the Veda which deal with prescriptions and prohibitions are authoritative and in these no mention of an omniscient person is ever made and so omniscience cannot be accepted.
The Jaina’s rebuttal of this argument consists in attacking the very concept of an impersonal of apaurușeya scripture considered as authoritative. As there can be only man-made scriptures, and those require omniscient persons to be their authors, in order to be “authoritative', the possibility of omniscient persons is to be admitted.
The argument by arthāpatti (necessary implication) is again not conclusive in the case of the omniscient, says the Mimāṁsaka. Though the argument in the form in which it is understood in the Mimāmsaka system will seek to prove omniscience, the Mimāṁsakas argue that a teacher need not necessarily be omniscient. This has logically to be their position because they accept only the Veda as the treasure-house of knowledge.
The Jaina here again points out that the significance of arthāpatti arises from the fact that it is able to explain a phenomenon, when all other sources of knowledge have failed. The omniscient being is infereable, and so he does not need the help of arthāpatti.
Anupalabdhi (non-comprehension) as a pramāṇa is again pointed out by the Mimässa philosophers as not establishing omniscience. The line of argument is that we perceive non-existence only when that which exists is absent. In the case of the omniscient, however, we have not perceived them. We have perceived only the inomniscient and we find them everywhere; so an omniscient person cannot be found at all.
The Jaina reply is that since inference positively proves the existence of the omniscient it is impossible for a pramāņa like abhāva to disprove the existence of the omniscient being.
The Mīmāṁsaka relentlessly poses different alternatives and points out that none of the alternatives is feasible. He points out that the term perfect knowledge may mean either a knowledge about all objects or about some principal objects. If the first alternative is accepted, the further question arises whether the “perception of all objects' is successive or simultaneous. If the perception is successive, it is not true, for successive perception of all things implies the perception of all the objects of the past, present and the future.