Book Title: Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics
Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai

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Page 406
________________ Soul 391 'करतलामलकवद् भाष्यमानस्यार्थस्य यद्दर्शनं तद्योगिनः प्रत्यक्षम् तद्धिस्फुटाभम्।' etrafarg Eriti As the result of this uncommon perception, peculiar to a sage, the objects of the universe were apprehended by Buddha and the saints like him "like the Amalaka-fruit in hand” and they succeeded in attaining omniscience. P. THE LIBERATED STATE AND OMNISCIENCE: THE NON-ADVAITA VEDĀNTA VIEWS DUALISTIC VEDĀNTA VIEW, OMNISCIENCE IS ATTAINED BY A LIBERATED SOUL It has been pointed out more than once that the liberated soul and the soul which has entered the Nirvāņa, are not omniscient, although omniscience may be possible in a being who is about to attain final emancipation. This is the theory, upon which the Sāṁkhya, the Yoga, the Nyāya, the Vaišeşika, the Buddhist and the Advaita monists of the Vedānta school are agreed. But those philosophers of the Vedānta school who do not admit the identity of the Brahma and the Jiva hold a different view. According to them the liberated Jiva becomes omniscient and the grounds for this view of the dualistic Vedāntists are obvious. They do not adınit the reality of the absolute and undetermined (Nirguņa) Brahma. The Brahma, according to them is Saguņa i.e. determined and endowed with attributes. The absolute monists of the Vedānta school maintain that it is impossible to ascribe omniscience or any qualification to the liberated soul which is merged in the attributeless Brahma. Even these monists do not deny that a soul which by dint of its self-culture and self-development has succeeded in closely associating itself with the qualified or the Saguna Brahma, attains omniscience. The Vedāntins other than the absolute monists hold that Brahma is Saguņa or qualified and that the absolute, unqualified or the Nirguņa Brahma is an unreal abstraction, that the Mukti or emancipation of a soul consists in its inseparable association with (and not an absolute merger in) the Saguņa Brahma and that such a Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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