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INTRODUCTION sarvajñatva or omniscience, which can be attained by any spiritual aspirant ; subject to the subduing of passionsł. Acārya śāntaraksita also proves that omniscient can know each and everything if he wants to know it, because he is void of obscuration of knowledge.
Yoga and Vaiseșika systems hold that omniscience is a sddhi or supernatural power which is not necessarily realisable by all unless special efforts are made.
Regarding Jainism, it is maintained that omniscient person perceives all substances with all their modifications related to—past, present and future3. It was believed before the period of Logical Reflection that, one who knows one thing knows all things, a fact which is not emphasised by the subsequent authors. Ācārya Kundakunda speaks of omniscience as the Kevali who knows and perceives all things; this is the view of vyavahāra naya or empirical stand point : and Kevali knows only) own self from the transcendental point of view. Obviously, the higher wisdom is evolved from within and not without*.
In Pravacana sāra, 5 he speaks of Kevali as : He, who does not know simultaneously the objects of the three tenses, and the three worlds, can not know even a single substance with its infinite modifications. A single substance has infinite modes; if any one does not know all substances, how will he be able to know one ?
To know ghata is to know the intrinsic nature of it and knowledge of ghata also, since it is the very nature of knowledge to reveal other objects and reveal itself. The ātman has infinite capacity to know all the objects; when one knows such capacity of the self, he has to know all the objects.
Samantabhadra establishes the perception of subtle, obscure and distant objects on the basis of inference.
Acārya Virasena suggests one more argument for omniscience. According to him, Kevalajñāna is innate to the ātman; due to destructioncum-subsidence of Karmas it functions as matijñāna; the self-cognised mati implies the fractional Kevalajñāna, just as the observation of a part of mount leads us to the perception of the mountain itself.
1 PVB, p. 329. 2 TS, v. 3328. 8 Şapkhandāgama, Payadi; Sūtra 78; Acäränga Sütra 402. 4 "Je egam jāņai se savvam jānai" Acāranga Sūtra 123. * Niyamasāra, gathā, 158. 6 Pravacana sāra, I. 47-49.
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