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96
INDIAN LOGIC
not the time revealed through the present course; thus the former submits : "Time is not revealed through courses like that, but through the features past, future and present exhibited by an act in the manner just described."19 To this is added that the measurement of time in terms of the conventional units like kşana, lava, kāșthā, etc. (so many Indian units) is made on the basis of an observation of certain acts themselves (not on the basis of an observation of time as such).20 Really, this whole argumentation of Jayanta himself should convince him that there is no need to posit time as an independent substance over and above the acts whose exhibition of the features succession, simultaneity, etc. it is supposed to account for. For if the features past, present and future can be distinguished in an act in the manner suggested by Jayanta (and on this question he sounds convincing) then the features succession, simultaneity etc. too can be well distinguished in it in an essentially similar manner. For example, x and y are simultaneous in case while x is present y is present as well, y succeeds x in case y becomes present as. soon as x becomes past, x is swifter than y in case first x and y are both present and then x becomes past while y continues to be present, x is slower than y in case first x and y are both present and then x continues to be present while y becomes past. That the conventionally standardised time-units are measured in terms of the acts exhibited by certain bodies (he must be meaning astronomical bodies) is also a correct position hinted by Jayanta. So viewed in the light of his final reply Jayanta's entire present polemic seems to be a polemic with no point at all. Perhaps, the Naiyāyika was constitutionally incapable of thinking of a distinct type of objective feature without at the same time thinking of a corresponding type of independent real
The same sort of situation obtains in the case of Jayanta's treatment of space which immediately follows his treatment of time. Thus on his showing space too is one impartite substance existing independently which in the light of the sun's situation in the various parts of a day is contentially divided into ten units east, southeast, south, southwest, west, etc., his point being that two things taken as such cannot be said to be lying east, etc. of one another unless space is thus posited.21 The opponent objects : “As soon as one proceeds to look for space in the manner suggested by you yourself one finds that it is multifariously divided (the same thing also happening in the
