________________
72
Pravacanasāra
some men have some of their senses more alert and sharp than usually possible; all this means that there is the possibility of the presence of different degrees of knowledge according to proportionate subsidence and destruction of knowledgeobscuring karman. Then that condition of the liberated soul, where all the karmas are tracelessly annihilated, will have to be accepted as a state of unlimited knowledge which is the very nature of the self. In the religio-mystical experience the self when freed from karmic fetters is itself the Higher self; it is a condition of absolute knowledge which is the same as absolute happiness for which there is no parallel in this world. Knowledge and happiness are the two sides of the same shield of liberation, nay they are identical. What Vedānta puts negatively Jainism puts positively: the former links nescience with misery and the latter omniscience with eternal bliss; the Vedānta annihilates nescience by submerging the individual into the Universal, while Jainism says that the individual itself becomes universal, still each retaining its separate individuality, with this omniscient bliss, when stripped of its karmas. The omniscience is possessed by Jaina prophets like Mahāvira and by all the liberated souls.
OMNISCIENCE OF Varuna.-Leaving, aside the peculiar back-ground of this doctrine in Jaina philosophy, the conception of all-knowledge is a legitimate claim of human mind. Some tinge of omniscience is associated (p. 76:] with the Vedic god Varuna. The all-encompassing blue vault above is the natural basis of Varuņa; the sun, the eminent luminary of the sky, is his eye, his golden winged messenger; the sky can be seen from everywhere, especially so with nomadic Aryans who spent much of their time on open grounds, and so Varuņa sits looking on all; and he easily detects the violations of his laws by men. The sky is ever reflected in the great ocean, so Varuņa is said to go in the ocean. This ubiquitous character of Varuņa brings him some tinge of omniscience, so he is said to be a witness to the flights of birds in the sky and to the path of ships in the ocean. This is physical omnipresence with a moral purpose and does not indicate any metaphysical or psychological implication; that is why perhaps this idea is not seen to be continued in later literature.
UPANIŞADS ON OMNISCIENCE.-The conception of omniscience in Upanişadic philosophy has to be sought under the idea of Brahman. Through the course of Indo-Aryan literature, from Ķgveda to the last stratum of Upanişads, the word Brahman, both neuter and masculine, has passed through various vicissitudes of meaning; once the word signified prayer, and later on the potential power in prayers and other holy acts; and further Brahman as the limitless power at the basis of all existence was an easy step; but synthetically taking into consideration the culminating point, the Brahman has both anthropomorphic and noumenal characteristics. In the beginning he is identified with various elements, and later he is conceived as bliss and light and ultimately the Real of the real. Brahman is the cosmic base, or the world-ground as Hume puts it, of all phenomena which are merely his various aspects. Brahman is everything, it is permeation, it is identity; besides him there
1 Macdonell: Vedic Mythology pp. 22 etc. 2 Belvalkar and Ranade: History of Indian Philosophy, Creative Period, pp. 351 etc.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
