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LVI
ÞRÁVACANASĀRA.
The transcendental aspect of omniscience lies in its ability to know the absent and non-concrete as well, which are not perceived by indirect or mediate knowledge received through senses (38-41). This act of knowing is the natural and essential outcome of the destruction of counter-acting karmas; and therefore this as well as other activities do not make the omniscient liable, as the beings in the round-of-rebirths are, to attachment and aversion which lead to further bondage (42-6,52).
Omniscient knowledge visualises completely and simultaneously the whole range of variegated and unequal objectivity of the present and otherwise, A single substance lias infinite modes, and infinite are the classes of substances; to know them serially is an impossibility; so in order to know even a single substance with its modifications, it is necessary that one should know simultaneously the objects of three tenses and three worlds, being still immune from consequent attachment or áversion (49-52). This omniscience, which is supersensitive (i. e. it does not require the help of senses) in its functions, can visualise non-concrete entities, and as such it is the highest; the soul when it functions through organs of senses, with which it is endowed in its embodied state, perceives only the perceptible, and sometimes it does not; the sense organs cannot perceive simultaneously; they constitute a foreign stuff not essentially and naturally belonging to the self, and as such what is perceived by them cannot be direct to the soul: so it is only in on science, when the soul directly visualises the objects without the mediation of senses, there is direct (pratyakşa) knowledge (53-58)
ii). That self-born, perfect and pure knowledge, which enlightens infinite things and which is free from the stages of perception, is called real happiness; omniscience is a state of happiness where there is no trace of misery because of the absence of hindering karmas; everything desirable is achieved therein, and it is appreciated by all the liberable souls; various beings in the roundof-rebirths are harassed by senses, and they try to satisfy them by yielding to them, but this pleasure of senses is misery itself; the soul is the substratum of happiness, and the bodily happiness is no happiness at all ; when the soul is itself happiness, it is no use, pursuing the pleasures of senses; and it is the liberated soul that has both knowledge and happiness (which are not contin
gent on external accessories ), just as the sun las both light and warmth · (59-68).
As a result of S'ubhopayoga which consists in devotion to divinity, preceptor etc. and in the cultivation of philanthropy and fasts, the soul is destined to sub-human, human or divine births wherein are available various pleasures of senses. The happiness of gods even is not self-established ; simply to satisfy their physical itch they enjoy various pleasures; the enjoyment of these pleasures simply leads to further prolongation of embodied condition; their desire for sensory pleasures goes on increasing, and they are ever unsatisfied. The happiness derived through senses is dependent, amenable to disturbances, terminable and a cause of bondage and dangerous; so it should be completely eschewed. This should be thoroughly realized ; attachment and aversion
