________________
393
Soul
at once. 'स यदा पितृलोककामो भत्रति संकल्पादेवास्य पितरः समुत्तिष्ठन्ति' । छान्दोग्योपनिषत् ८|२|३|
OMNISCIENCE OF ISVARA IS UNLIMITED
The omniscience of a liberated soul thus consists in the fact that it has the power to know at once whatever it wants to know, and not that all the cosmic things and phenomena are ever present in its consciousness. The omniscience of the Lord, however, is not of this sort. His omniscience is eternal; in it are ever present all objects and occurrences of all times and places. The liberated soul has not this kind of omniscience,-this is the view of the Vedantists of the Dvaita or dualistic, the Dvaitadvaita or dualistico-monist and the Visiṣṭādvaita or differentiated monistic schools. The Advaita or the absolutely monistic schools of the Vedanta also attribute such an omniscience to the highly developed worshipper of the Saguna Brahma and we believe, such an omniscience and nothing more than that has been said to be attainable in the Samühālambana of the Nyaya, the Ārṣa-jñāna of the Vaiseṣika, the Pratibha of the Samkhya and the Yoga and the Yogi-pratyakṣa of the Buddhist.
Q. THE LIBERATED STATE AND OMNISCIENCE: THE JAINA VIEW
GOD, AS THE TEACHER IN THE VEDIC SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
That the unliberated Jiva's wandering in the Samsara are not omniscient is a matter of common experience and has been admitted in the Jaina philosophy, just as in all other systems. There is a remarkable unanmity between the Jaina's who repudiate the authority of the Veda's and the Mimāmsaka's who are firm supporters of the Vedic orthodoxy and ritualism, regarding the doctrines that the Jiva's have been wandering from the beginningless time in the Samsara, driven by the force of their Karma's and that there is no creator of this universe. But although the Jaina's
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org