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3. A CRITICAL STUDY OF SV, SVV AND SVT 101 its pristine glory. Ordinary knowledge is apprehensive whereas kevalajñāna or omniscience is all comprehensive. (vi) The Historical background of the theory of Omniscience :
It is a heritage of the Indian philosophy to advocate the close relation of omniscience with emancipation. The problem that arose before the spiritual aspirants, is the nature of mokșa and the path constituting it; mokşa-mārga presupposes the life of religious fervour ; hence the problem: ‘is realisation possible' arose ?
There is a school of philosophers like Sabara, Kumārila etc. who hold that omniscience is impossible on the ground that religion is suprasensorial ; only the Vedas have the final word over such problems, as has been said, 'codanālakṣano'rthaḥ dharmali'. Naturally the upholders of Vedic authority formulated the theory of man's capability of achieving the supersensorial knowledge. Besides, man is under the influence of raga, dveşa and ajñāna etc., hence they developed the theory that Vedas were apauruşeya.
The acceptance of this dogma naturally led the exponents of Mīmāṁsā to decry omniscience. Kumarua declares that the denial of omniscience means the denial of perceptual knowledge of religion; the latter is possible only with the help of the Vedas and not by means of sense or super-sensuous perception etc., the Mimamsakas have no objection if any one becomes omniscient by knowing the Dnarma with the help of the Vedas and all other things by means of other pramanast.
The Buddhists, on the other hand accept that man is capable of perceiving Diarma ; they support this contendon dy the example of Duuuna who perceived Dnarma as such in the form of Caturarya satya ; according to them Buddha realised the great truth of life : that there is sorrow, cause of sorrow, the removal of sorrow and the way of removing sorrow. The fact of revelation of the truth of life implies that he himself should be taken as a pramāna.
Dharmakīrti does not deny the possibility of omniscience but emphasises the acquisition of knowledge of the essentials; he does not bother about the person whether he knows the things or not, which are not connected with his religious pursuit. Whereas Kumārila rejects the perception of Dharma, Dharmakirti establishes it.
Prajñākaragupta, the commentator of Dharmakirti, justifies the arguments of Dharmakirti, in establishing the dharmajna ; he further proved the
1 TS, v. 3128.
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