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The Soul and Consciousness :: 137
doubts against the theory of omniscience. A few are given here. It is impossible to entertain cognitions, in one and the same soul, of the mutually opposing entities like the cold and the hot. If the omniscient being knows everything in one instant, he will become unconscious the next moment. The omniscient, when he knows attachment and aversion of others, must become himself overwhelmed by them.1 Very often a doubt is raised that, when perfection in one department of knowledge is found to be practically impossible, the problem of omniscience is totally out of question.
The Jaina tries to meet the situation on the ground of his basic theory of the soul. If one is able to know the absence of omniscience in all times and at all places, he himself must be an omniscient being. In other words one cannot deny the possibility of omniscience without the risk of selfcontradiction. Mutual opposition of entities existing simultaneously or in succession is no obstruction in the way of their comprehension. They must be known as they are found to exist. As regards the knowledge of past and future events Amṛtacandra Sūri states: 'Just as on the picture wall the traces of things past, future and present are seen clearly at the same moment, in the same way they are perceived on the wall of consciousnes.... just as the traces of the past and future events are present, in the same way the cognitive traces of the past and future modes become present.'2 Moreover the non-existence of the future and the past events is meaningful only with respect to the present, but they are existent with respect to their own times. Memory always relates to things which are non-existent with respect to the present. "The past and future are perceived by the omniscient not as present, but as past and future."3 So his knowledge is never objectless and cannot be called a delusion. It is wrong to say that the omniscient will become unconscious
1. Prabhācandra: Prameyakamala-mārtaṇḍa, p. 72
2. Pravacanasāra (Tattvadīpikā-vrtti by Amṛtacandra), p. 50 3. M.L. Mehta: Jaina Psychology, p. 112
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