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Omniscient Beings
IV.
The Liberated State And Omniscience :
The Sankhya And The Yoga Views.
The philosophers of the Sankhya and the Yoga schools maintain that the evolution of the world is due to the conjunction of the Prakrti and the Purușa. The soul may be said to be in a state of bondage as long as the Prakrati remains proximate to it. The soul,
however, is absolutely incompatible; there cannot be any real
connection of the Prakrti with it. It is owing to Avivēka or ignorance that the essentially incorruptible Purusa is looked upon as affected or influenced by the Prakrti.
"Niḥsangehpyuparagōh vivēkāt "
Sankhya sūtram: Tantrartha-Samkṣēpadhyaya, 28.
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61
When a red flower is held over a glass-ware, the shade of redness falls upon the latter and makes it appear as red; but the real nature of the glass-ware is not modified in the least thereby. In the same manner, the proximate-ness of the Prakrti to the Puruşa makes no change in the essential nature of the latter.
"Japa-Sphatikayōriva nōparagaḥ kintvabhimanaḥ. 29, Do.
It is thus that owing to Aviveka, the Soul is considered to be in bondage when the Prakrti is near it and that it is said to be emancipated when the Prakrti is no longer near it. Really-there is no relation whatsoever between the Purusa on the one hand and the Prakrti with its evolutes on the other. When a Soul is liberated, it is even impossible to imagine a connection. The liberated Puruşa can not thus be said to be Omniscient or a knower of all things, according to the principles of the Sankhya and the Yoga systems.
It is consequently clear that the Buddhist and the Vedic systems agree that not only are the mundane Souls not Omniscient but that the liberated and the finally disembodied souls also are not such.
V.
The stage Penultimate To Liberation And Omniscience: The Yoga View.
Although neither a mundane Soul nor an emancipated being is
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