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SOME PROBLEMS IN JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
both jñāna and darśana in the omniscient stage just, as the light and heat of the sun occur simultaneously. But Siddhasena Divākara does not accept the distinction between jñāna and darśana in the omniscient stage. Jinabhadra, on the basis of the spiritual texts, supports the view of successive occurrence of jñāna and darśana in this stage. This problem has already been referred to in our discussion on the relation between jñāna and darśana. But the Jainas never questioned the occurrence of omniscience for a purified soul, although they had some differences of opinion regarding the possibility of the occurrence of jñāna and darśana in this stage.
We now come to the criticism of the possibility of omniscience, as presented by the Jainas. The Mīmārsakas are not prepared to accept the possibility of the occurrence of omniscience, and have raised a series of logical objections. According to them, omniscience cannot mean knowledge of all the objects in the world, either at the same time or successively. Nor can omniscience be knowledge of archetypal forms and not of particular things. There can be no omniscience, as the knowledge of the past, present and future can never be exhausted. Moreover, if all objects were known in omniscience at one moment, the next moment there would be a state of absolute unconsciousness. The omniscient, again, would be tainted by the desires and aversions of others in knowing them.
But the Jainas refute the arguments of the Mīmāṁsakas against the occurrence of omniscience. In the Pramānamīmāṁsā we get such refutation of the Mīmārsaka arguments. Similarly, the Mimāṁsaka objections have been refuted by Prabhācandra in Prame yakamalamārtanda. The Jainas say that it is not correct to deny the occurrence of omniscience as the Mimāṁsakas do. Omniscience is the single intuition of the whole world, because it does not depend upon the sense organs and the mind. The pure intuition of the omniscient self knows all objects simultaneously, at a single stroke, since it transcends the limits of time and space. Prabhācandra says that the Mīmāṁsaka objection that the omniscient soul would be unconscious themoment after the occurrence of omniscience is not correct, because it is a single unending intuition. For the omniscient, cognition and the world are not destroyed the moment the omniscience is possible. 76 Similarly, the Jainas contend, as against the Mīmāmsakas, that the omniscient soul knows the past as existing in the past and the future as existing in the future.77 The omniscient self is absolutely free from the bondage of physical existence as past, present and future. In fact, the Mīmāmsakas also admit that, in recognition, we apprehend in a flash of intuition, the past as well as the present in one cognition, while pratibhā jñāna, in empirical
76 Prameyakamalamārtanda, p. 67. 77 Ibid.
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