Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 144

The Sophisticated Stage 123
for creation or destruction. The substances by their interaction produce new sets of qualities.
Now let us deal with the Ajīva categories one by one. We should begin with Kāla or time which makes possible the continuity, modification, movement, newness and oldness of substances-vartanā-parināma-kriyāḥ paratvāparatve cakālasya. It is the fourth division of Ajīia and falls within the Anastikāya group because it is not extended in space. It is an indivisible substance present everywhere at the same time. In a general sense Kāla however, bears the connotation of time and is divided and subdivided into seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, etc. It is empirical or conventional time (vyavahărika kāla, also called samaya). But in the real sense, Kāla is indivisible, and it is that which is continually making old things new and new things old. For example, a child grows up into a young man, and finally dies in old age, and the Jiva is forced to inhabit afresh in the body of another infant. The Jisa remains the same, but the power that made its covering body at one time old and then young is Kala. Thus the distinction between the old and the new cannot be explained without time. This is a ground on which the existence of time can be inferred. Like space, time is also inferred, though not perceived. Of other grounds of its inference, it may be said that modification or change of states cannot be conceived without time. A mango can be green or ripe at different moments of time. Without postulating timedistinctions we cannot explain this. Similarly, movement also cannot be conceived without the supposition of time. The real time or Paramärthika Kāla is formless and eternal. It cannot have the divisions of skandha, deśa and pradeśa. Some Jain thinkers do not admit time as a separate substance, but regard it as a mode (paryāya) of other substances.
Ākāśa is that which gives space and makes room for the existence of all extended substances. If a lamp is lighted it is the space or Ākāśa that makes room for its beams to shine in. Likewise a wall may be the Ākāśa for nail to be knocked, water may be the Ākāśa for sugar to be melted, and so forth. Ākāśa is divided into Skandha, desa and pradeśa (explained in the next paragraph under Dharma). It is
1TTDS, V, 22. 2 Gunaratna on SDSC, 49 (p. 163). *DS, 21. "SDSC, 49 (p. 162).