Schools and Sects in Jaina Literature

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

Page 44

SCHOOLS AND SECTS IN JAINA LITERATURE
35
Supposing for argument's sake that knowledge is necessary, how is one to know for certain what is knowledge? It cannot be known. All philosophers differ in their idea of knowledge. We cannot say which of them spoke the truth. The followers of Mahāvīra may say that he obtained omniscient knowledge and therefore the knowledge that proceeds from him is right knowledge. But how is one to know in the absence of any evidence to prove it that Mahāvīra alone obtained omniscient knowledge and no one else? The story of the gods coming down from heaven to worship Mahāvira and thus testifying to his omniscient knowledge is not to be trusted for there is no evidence to prove that it really so happened. Traditional evidence is also untrustworthy because it cannot be definitely known whether such tradition was set on foot by an imposter or a worthy man. What has not been proved cannot be believed. The phenomenon of the coming down of gods from heaven is shown by magicians also and in itself is not enough to prove the omniscience of anyone.
Granting even, say the Ajñānavādins, that Mahāvīra was omniscient how do we know that the Nirgrantha scriptures are really his teachings and not circulated by knaves? How again are we to know if Mahāvīra used the words in the scriptures in the same sense as they are taken now? How do we know what his real intention was?
Therefore it is established that owing to its being the cause of longer bondage in the world and owing to want of definite certainty, knowledge is not the highest thing but ajñāna is the highest thing.
There are sixty-seven schools under Ajñānavāda obtained in the following manner. Let us take the first of the nine "principles" and draw a table as below:
JIVA
sattva asattva sadasattva avācyatva sadavācyatva asadavăcyatva sadasadavācyatva
Here sattva means existence in its own form. Asattva means nonexistence in other forms. Sadasaltva means simultaneous existence in its own form and non-existence in other forms. When such existence and non-existence are to be expressed at one and the same time in one word it becomes indescribable, there being no such word and therefore it is said to be avācyatva 'indescribableness.' When from one point of view it is existent and from another it is indescribable and the two are to be simultaneously expressed it is called sadavācyatva. When from one point of