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I, 40 ]
PRAVACANASĀRA. 34. That which is preached by the Jina through words, which are constituted of material substance," is called the sūtra (or the sacred text); knowledge consists in knowing it, and hence the sacred text also is designated as knowledge.
35. He who knows is knowledge; the self does not become a knower with knowledge (as an extraneous instrument). The very self develops knowledge, and all the objects stand (reflected) in the knowledge.
36. Therefore the self is knowledge; the object of knowledge is the substance, which is said to be threefold; the substance comprises the soul and the (five) other (substances), which are prone to modification,
37. All modifications, present and absent, of all those types of substances, stand essentially (reflected) in the knowledge, as if in the present.
38. Those, which have never originated and those, in fact, that have been and are already destroyed are the absent modifications; they are directly visualised in omniscience.
39. If that omniscience would not directly visualise the future and past modifications, who then would call that knowledge supernatural?
40. It is declared that it is imposible to know the past and
1. Sound is material according to Jaina philosophy, and it is the result of the clash of molecules (see II, 40 infra; and also P. 79; TS. V, 24). According to the Vais'eşıka system, it is a quality of ākās'a. When once it is accepted that sound is a quality, one is forced to find out some substance or the other, with which it is to be associated; and the Vars'eşıka school concludes that it is the linga of ākās'a, because no other substance is convenient for this attribution. As in Jainism, the Mimāṁsaka school holds that sound is a substance,
2. The doctor takes the temperature of the patient with the thermometer, i. e., his process of taking the temperature stands in need of an outside instrument. We are accustomed to define, nowadays, knowledge as the process of analysis and synthesis; and the author says that this process is not extraneous, but completely identical with, nay the very nature of the soul.
3. With reference to past, present and future; or with regard to substance, quality and modification; or with respect to origination, destruction and permanence; see II, 35-42 infra.
