Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

SR No.: 001619
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Religion, & Epistemology
File Size: 8 MB

Page 112

Time
97
ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF TIME: EXAMINED IN LIGHT OF THE JAINA THEORY
According to Aristotle, Time is "the number of motion relative to before and after". By 'number' he means a point numbered. Time is constituted of distinctive points, which can be counted or numbered, analogous to distinctive positions in space, successively occupied by a point in motion. Continuity of Time is but continuity of Motion; continuity of Motion again, is dependent on spatial extension or magnitude. With Aristotle, time, motion and spatial extension are thus convertible terms. We have already seen how Time cannot be identified with Motion in as much as it is presupposed in the movements of the things in motion, Nor can we identify Time with spatial magnitude. The Sāṁkhya school of philosophers hint at such a theory when they say: “Direction (Dik) and Time (Kala) are derived from
Space (Akāśa)". 12. Pradhāna-kāryādhyāya. Space, however, supplies the location or extension where movements of objects take place; it has nothing to do with the operation of the movements themselves. These movements of the things are conditioned by a Reality which is different from Space and this Reality is Kāla according to the Jaina's.
आकाशप्रदेशनिमित्तेति चैत्र, तां प्रत्यधिकरणभावाद् भाजनवत्। Kāla, then, is a separate Real, not to be identified with or accounted for by Soul, Matter, the principles of Motion and Rest, or by Space. Its reality is proved by the temporal order in which things are found. The temporal order in the things of our observation is not our mental creation but it is really associated with the order of things in themselves. Substances are found in various modifications, activities, proximities and distances--all related to one another. With these is associated a real duration or temporal order in such a way that with the observation of these modifications, activities, etc. in things, we have the apprehensions of these being past, present or future.