Schools and Sects in Jaina Literature

Author(s): Amulyachandra Sen
Publisher: Vishwa Bharati Calcutta

Page 26

SCHOOLS AND SECTS IN JAINA LITERATURE
17
PURANISTS.
Another philosopher says that the world is limited but eternal. This view is ascribed by Harşakula and Sīlāņka to Vyāsa, for Vyāsa says that the world consists of seven islands.
The UPANISADS.
The view is said to be held by some fools that as the earth, though it is but one pile, presents many forms, so the intelligent principle, viz., the ătman, appears under various forms as the universe. That the world is created is said to be an error committed by some philosophers.
The universe again is said by some Brāhmaṇas and Sramaņas to have been produced from the primeval egg and that He (Brahmā) created the things. Some say," that the knowledge of the highest authority is unlimited. Harşakula and Silänka argue that that which has no limit in time and space is called unlimited by some teachers; but those who possess a knowledge of this unlimited by means of super-sensual vision do not thereby necessarily become omniscient. The meaning appears to be that the Vedāntin's idea of the Absolute is that it transcends knowledge and that one who knows the Absolute becomes, as it were, the Absolute himself, both the ideas being very frequent in the Upanişads. The Jainas, however, contend that those who possess a knowledge of the Absolute as a transcendental Being do not thereby themselves become entitled to be called omniscient. The text goes on to say that the same philosopher holds that the knowledge is limited in every way. Harşakula and Silāņka regard these two apparently contradictory views to belong to the same philosophers, and solve the difficulty by taking the latter view to allude to Brahma's sleep for a thousand years alternating with his wakefulness for another thousand years during which he is unconscious and conscious respectively and so the knowledge is both limited and unlimited. The context of the verse is that the Nirgrantha ascetics should know the ordinary views of the common people for some of them say things which are the outcome of a wrong understanding, and as an illustration mentions apparently contradictory views held by Vedāntins and Purānists.
* Sat.S. I.i.4.6.
1 Sat.S. 1..1.9. " Süt.S. 1.1.3.9.
Sat.S. 1.1.9.8. " Sat.S. L.i.4.7.
Cf. Katha Up. II.v.9-12.