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136 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
must be the knowledge of everything, and in the infinite experience nothing can be lost. Every fact and every feeling (every thing in any sense real) as an element in that experience, is invested with the timeless necessity which defies change or destruction.... In this sense past and future are no less and not otherwise than the present there is no difference between the trivial and the important,”! The knowledge possessed by a perfect soul would, then, consist in the knowledge of all that its own nature is capable of revealing; it would, to a very large extent, not be knowledge of things actually existing, but of the forms of all things as lying in the womb of possibility.”2 No details are superfluous and redundant for omniscience. Another characteristic of omniscience, which may be seen to follow from the above dicussion, is that the omniscient being must comprehend all the things simultaneously. When the soul possesses the capacity to know everything, it must know all the things simultaneously, for there is nothing to obstruct such a function of the soul. Like a mirror it must reflect all that comes under its span. Hence omniscience must mean the simultaneous knowledge of all the knowables of the world.
Arguments Against Omniscience and their Refutation
The Mimāṁsaka opposes the possibility of omniscience on the ground of its non-perception by any means of comprehension. Prabhācandra summarises the opponent's view as “Let there be the omniscient being. Whether he knows all the things of the past, etc., in their own forms, or in terms of something in the present. If the former alternative is held, omniscience cannot be direct, because its object is not present.... In the second case omniscience becomes a delusion, for it comprehends things in a different way from their existence."3 Besides Prabhācandra gives a number of
1. H. Joachim: The Nature of Truth, p. 111 2. C.R. Jain: Key of Knowledge, p. 401 3. Prabhācandra: Nyāya-kumuda-candrodaya, p. 88
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