The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c8.148

c8.148

§ 78. Sthān. 347b; Nandīvṛtti 65b and others are correct in defining the name of *ohi*-cognition by *ātmano’rtha-sākṣātkaraṇa-vyāpāra* and by equating *avadhi* with *avadhāna*. The *ohi*-cognition is inherent in both the inhabitants of the world of gods and those of the different spheres of hell owing to this form of existence of theirs,² and as such it is called *bhava-paccaiya* (Nandi 76b; T. 1, 22). But the two preceding forms are equally inherent in these inhabitants (Viy. 343b). However, due to a certain behaviour of certain Karman species in the soul, the *khaḍvasama*-condition (§ 182), the *ohi*-cognition occurs as *khaḍvasamiya* (Ṭhāṇ. 49b) also in human beings and animals with five senses (Viy. 343b). It consists (Nandi 97a) in the cognition (*jāṇai pāsai*, comp. § 32) of ∞¹ up to all bodily substances (*rūvi-davva*, comp. T. 1, 28) in a space ranging from the smallest to the widest possible extension² during a time comprising all stages from the smallest up to extremely large extents and, moreover, in the past as well as in the future, and such in ∞ conditions (*bhāva*), though they are all but the ∞ fraction of all preceding conditions.³ The *ohi*-condition is acquired when the teaching of Mahāvīra was conveyed *soccā* (Viy. 432a), but also *asoccā*, if only the Karman conditions mentioned above are fulfilled. The true believer possesses *ohi* wherever he may be always in the same intensity, or either the opposite of both is valid. This results in six possibilities (see JACOBI on T. 1, 23; Ṭhāṇ. 378a) partly explained by Nandī 81a ff. by way of comparisons. The same is done by Umāsvāti and Devanandin (p. 123). What they call *anavasthita* is called *paḍivāi* by Nandī, but while in doing so a certain up and down is presupposed by the former, the latter expresses thus a non-recurring involution (*pratipatati*). As reason for some of those possibilities part of which have even sub-species Siddhasena refers to the corresponding variety of the underlying *khaḍvasama* condition, and it may be taken for granted that this goes for all. He who owns the faculty of the "transcendental cognition of bodily things" which represents the *ohi*-cognition (JACOBI on T. 1, 22) is capable of lifting himself up to different mountains, of letting himself down into the deep and of dwelling in the *kamma-bhūi*, just as he is capable of multiplying himself from twice to ten times his size in 1 *sam*. (Viy. 438a). Ṭhāṇ. 393a vividly describes the startling effect of the first occurrence of the *ohi*-cognition on him who comes to behold the earth quite small swarming with tiny beings (*kunthu*), a powerful god, a monstrous serpent living in distant continents or the unclaimed treasures hidden in all possible places. For this, however, so Sthān. says, the blame has to be put on the *mohanīya karman* which is still effective within him who possesses the gift of *ohi*-cognition.