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Kevala jnana

Also Known As Kevala · omniscience · Jain liberationOriginal Term kevala jnana (Sanskrit, isolated knowledge)
Salvation and Liberation

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Origin 100 to 450 CE

In Jain teaching the soul is by nature omniscient, blissful and unbounded, and is prevented from being so by the karmic matter adhering to it. Kevala jnana is what remains when that matter has been shed: unobstructed knowledge of everything. The liberated soul at death rises to the summit of the universe and remains there, individual and unchanging, neither absorbed into anything nor returning.

The structure is worth noticing because it is not the structure of its neighbours. There is no merging with an absolute, as in Advaita; there is no extinguishing, as in Buddhism; and there is no God who liberates, since the liberated are not creators and do not intervene. The system is austere and entirely self-powered, and the twenty-four teachers who show the way are examples rather than saviours.

The sharpest internal division in Jainism follows from it. The Digambara order holds that liberation cannot be attained in a female body, since the complete renunciation it requires includes the abandonment of clothing, which they hold is not open to women; a woman must therefore be reborn male first. The Svetambara order rejects this, holds that women can attain liberation directly, and holds further that the nineteenth of the twenty-four teachers was a woman, a figure the Digambara tradition accordingly regards as male. Two orders of the same religion disagree about the sex of one of its founding teachers, and the disagreement follows from a doctrine about who can be liberated.

Jainism also has a distinctive reason for handling disagreement itself differently. Its doctrine of many-sidedness holds that reality has innumerable aspects and that any assertion is true only from a standpoint, so that conflicting claims are typically partial views rather than errors. This makes the tradition structurally resistant to heresy in the sense the word carries elsewhere, though evidently not resistant enough to prevent the dispute above.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
100 to 450 CE 1
Held By
Both principal Jain traditions, Svetambara and Digambara, hold kevala jnana, omniscience following the shedding of karmic matter, as the goal of liberation; the two traditions differ on whether a woman can attain it in her present birth, with Svetambara citing the Tirthankara Malli as a woman who did. 2
Status
Status Within the Tradition
Defined and binding within this tradition 3Tradition: Svetambara
Status Within the Tradition
Defined and binding within this tradition 3Tradition: Digambara
The kevalin is held to be beyond bodily need
Status Within the Tradition
The teaching of one school or lineage within the tradition 3Tradition: Svetambara
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Omniscience, and What a Body Can Do

Kevala jnana, "isolated" or absolute knowledge, is omniscience in Jain teaching: direct, simultaneous and complete knowledge of all substances in all their modes, past, present and future. It is not an addition to the soul but the soul's own nature, uncovered when the four destructive karmas are destroyed. One who attains it is a kevalin; a kevalin who also teaches and establishes the fourfold community is a Tirthankara.

Because knowledge is the soul's nature rather than an achievement, the Jain account differs from omniscience as discussed in other Indian schools: it is not an inference about a supreme being but a claim about what any soul is when unobstructed. It also does foundational work, since Jain scripture derives its authority from having been spoken by omniscient beings, and it supplies the standing answer to the charge that syadvada makes Jainism relativist, the kevalin's knowledge is unqualified, and qualification belongs only to the partial knowledge of everyone else.

After attaining kevala jnana a person continues to live until the remaining non-destructive karmas are exhausted, and the condition of such a being is analysed carefully. Whether a kevalin still requires food, and whether ordinary bodily functions continue, is one of the questions on which the two great Jain communities divide.

The Digambara position holds that the kevalin no longer takes food or engages in bodily functions, being sustained without them, on the ground that omniscience is incompatible with such dependence. Digambaras also hold that complete nudity is required for the highest ascetic practice, and therefore that liberation is not possible in a female body, so that a woman must first be reborn as a man.

The Svetambara position holds that the kevalin continues to eat and to function bodily, on the ground that embodiment entails such needs and that omniscience concerns knowledge rather than physiology. Svetambaras hold that women can attain liberation directly, and their tradition maintains that the nineteenth Tirthankara, Malli, was a woman, a claim Digambaras reject, holding Malli to have been male.

These are not marginal disagreements. They are the principal doctrinal markers separating the two communities, they are bound up with the question of whether any clothing at all is compatible with complete non-possession, and the disagreement about women's capacity for liberation is among the most substantive in the tradition. Both communities agree entirely that the kevalin's knowledge is complete and that omniscience is the goal.

The Five Kinds of Knowledge, and Kevala's Place Among Them

Jain epistemology classifies knowledge into five types, arranged in an ascending order of directness and completeness, and kevala jnana is defined as the fifth and final member of the series rather than as a stand-alone category, which is why Jain philosophical texts introduce it only after setting out the other four.

Mati jnana, sensory and mental knowledge, is ordinary cognition through the senses and the mind, including perception, memory, recognition and inference; it is mediate and fallible. Shruta jnana, scriptural or testimonial knowledge, is knowledge derived from words, symbols and the teaching of others, including the study of Jain scripture itself, and depends on mati jnana as its basis, since words must first be perceived and understood. These first two are classed together as indirect (paroksha) knowledge, mediated by the senses or by language.

The remaining three are direct (pratyaksha), arising without the mediation of the senses. Avadhi jnana is a limited clairvoyant knowledge of physical objects across distance and time, attainable by some celestial and infernal beings by nature and by ascetics through spiritual discipline. Manahparyaya jnana, mind-reading knowledge, is a still rarer direct perception of the thoughts of other minds, attained only by advanced human ascetics of great purity. Kevala jnana, isolated or absolute knowledge, is the last member, distinguished from the previous two not merely by degree but by kind: where avadhi and manahparyaya are partial and bounded, kevala jnana is unbounded and complete, knowing all substances in all their modes at once, and once attained it does not fluctuate or coexist with any of the four lesser kinds, which fall away when it arises.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Digambara, Denominations

Kevala jnana, the omniscience following the shedding of karmic matter, is the goal of liberation, but this tradition holds a woman cannot attain it in her present birth and must first be reborn a man.

Source Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of WomenPadmanabh S. Jaini
Jainism, Religions
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Svetambara, Denominations

Kevala jnana, the omniscience following the shedding of karmic matter, is the goal of liberation, and this tradition holds women as well as men can attain it in the present life, citing the Tirthankara Malli as a woman.

Source Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of WomenPadmanabh S. Jaini

Commonly Conflated with (See Note)

Jnana Yoga, Doctrines

Kevala jnana is a Jain state of complete knowledge attained, not a Hindu method of attaining it.

Positions on This Question

Digambara, Denominations

Omniscience once attained is complete and the kevalin no longer takes food, which is one of the two points on which the Jain communities divided.

Svetambara, Denominations

The kevalin continues to take food, and a woman may attain omniscience, which is the other point of the division.

Related To

The Kevala Jnana of Mahavira, Religious Events
Sources
1. The Jaina Path of Purification
Padmanabh S. Jaini, University of California Press, 1979On omniscience and the state of the kevalinView the Source
2. Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women
Padmanabh S. Jaini, University of California Press, 1991View the Source
3. The Jains
Paul Dundas, Routledge, 2002On kevala jnana and the Digambara-Svetambara divisionView the Source
Tattvartha Sutra
UmaswatiChapter 10, on liberationView the Source
Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source
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