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been known by Jain saints for time immeasurable and has been passed via an oral tradition.
Table of Knowledge
Innate (Immediate)
Clairvoyant Mindreading
(Sensory) perception
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Omniscient
Memory
Non-linguistic
Knowledge
Empirical
Acquired (Mediate)
Quasi-linguistic
Infralinguistic
Analogy
Recognition Reasoning Apprehension Inference * Infralinguistic knowledge is found in lower sensed beings that do not have a mind. † Linguistic knowledge is the province of beings with minds. Scriptural knowledre is articulated by the saints.
Vardhamana, later known as Mahavira, was the last person to impart his omniscient knowledge to society'. Mahavira imparted much of his knowledge to his eleven chief disciples who later achieved omniscience themselves. These disciples had astounding mental capacities as did the disciples to whom much of this knowledge was orally passed. The last Jain saint to have attained complete omniscience is believed to be Jambu Swami, a third generation disciple of Mahavira, who's soul was liberated in 463 B.C. Afterwards, all saints only had partial intuition. Bhûtabali was the last saint to have had perfect knowledge of a portion of the Jain philosophy; he had perfect knowledge of one Anga. Eventually this information was transcribed in the form of sutras. Most of these scriptures were lost over the past 2000 years, but from what has been salvaged we can reflect in awe at the knowledge that has been known for eternity by such saints and has only recently come into society's existence.
Jain Scriptures and Its Correlations to Modern Scientific Thought
In all there are 60 primary Jain scriptures of which 45 are still in existence". These scriptures have been categorized into three main parts, and subcategorized into additional scriptures. There also exist three additional sets of primary scriptures from other sources'.9 These scriptures claim that their contents are based on the information imparted from omniscient Jain saints before, after and during Mahavir's time, and of course include the teachings of Mahavir. The Tattvartha Sutra by the second century Jain monk Umasvati contains an elaborate account many scientific Jain principles. Jain scriptures and literature can be divided into four general categories: cosmology, history, philosophy, and ritual.
Articulate
2
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Linguistic † Scriptural
Implication Probability Negation
To delineate the breath and depth of knowledge contained in the small fraction of Jain scriptures that have been salvaged goes beyond the scope of this project, but a few examples will aid in substantiating the credibility of the knowledge contained in these scriptures. As introduced previously, many aspects of nature and the universe were delineated in these scriptures (as all such aspects were known by the omniscients and passed via an oral tradition) but were not discovered by modern science for up to two millennia later.
etc.
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