08-04-2022, 08:22 AM
Gatha 37
Certainly, all modes – present and not-present – of those types of substances (dravya) subsist in the (infinite) knowledge (kevalajñāna), as if in the present.
Explanatory Note:
When an artist draws the figure of a past luminary, like Bāhubali or Bharata, or of a future luminary, like Tīrthańkara Padmanābha (future incarnation of King Śreõika), these are seen in the present. In the same way, the knowledge mirror reflects, in the present, the substances of the past and the future. How is it possible? An advanced ascetic who has attained, through austerity, the purity of his soul is able to know the past and future modes of a substance (an individual, for example); his knowledge at that time takes the form of that mode. If the Omniscient, who has attained infinite knowledge through ultimate purity of his soul, knows all modes of all substances, there is nothing ‘impossible’ in this. This is the nature of knowledge, and the nature of a substance is beyond logical argument.
Taken from . Ācārya Kundakunda’s Pravacanasāra – Essence of the Doctrine by Vijay K. Jain
Certainly, all modes – present and not-present – of those types of substances (dravya) subsist in the (infinite) knowledge (kevalajñāna), as if in the present.
Explanatory Note:
When an artist draws the figure of a past luminary, like Bāhubali or Bharata, or of a future luminary, like Tīrthańkara Padmanābha (future incarnation of King Śreõika), these are seen in the present. In the same way, the knowledge mirror reflects, in the present, the substances of the past and the future. How is it possible? An advanced ascetic who has attained, through austerity, the purity of his soul is able to know the past and future modes of a substance (an individual, for example); his knowledge at that time takes the form of that mode. If the Omniscient, who has attained infinite knowledge through ultimate purity of his soul, knows all modes of all substances, there is nothing ‘impossible’ in this. This is the nature of knowledge, and the nature of a substance is beyond logical argument.
Taken from . Ācārya Kundakunda’s Pravacanasāra – Essence of the Doctrine by Vijay K. Jain