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INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
that the states or moments of a particular thing are not discrete but continuous. According to this system, reality is neither a series of discrete momentary states (i.e. mere momentary modes) nor eternally static substance but persistence of an eternal substance through its various changing modes. So if they have declared unrelated solitary moment unreal and a contiunous flow of moments one melting into the other real, their view on the nature of time would have fitted well with their theory of change. This view of theirs seems to have been influenced by the Buddhist view that merely object moments are real and the continuum (santāna) of these discrete object moments is mental construction.29
Nyāya-Vaišesika View : According to this system, Time is a substance. It is one, etemal and all-pervading. It causes movement and change. All perceptible things are perceived as moving, changing, coming into being and passing away. They are produced and destroyed. There must be some Force or Power which thus brings them into existence and moves them all. The things themselves cannot do it. There must, therefore, be something which makes this movement, origination and destruction of things possible. It is this something, this Power or Force, which is Time. As it moves and changes things it gives rise to in the percipient the notions, with regard to those things, of past, present and future, of old and new. This Time substance, though itself static, is the source of all changes and motions. It is devoid of specific physical qualities like colour etc. Hence it is not emanable to perceptual cognition. Nor could it be an object of mental perception because mind cannot function independently of external sense-organs in the case of external things. Its existence is inferred from the facts of consecution and simultaneity between phenomena. Had there been no Time we would have no knowledge of consecution or simultaneity and there would be nothing to account for our time-notions associated with all change.30 Time being one unique substance, name given to it is a proper name and not a general term. When Time is divided into many different times, it is a metaphor. 32 In other words, distinctions in time like a minute, an hour, a day and so on are apparent and due to certain conditions. Similar is the case with the division of Time into past, present and future. In accordance with the changes of things Time reveals itself as past, present and future. Time that is all-pervading partless substance appears as many in association with the changes related to
