Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 531

70 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
of Time. It means that Time has no real (or objective) existence apart from the moment'. But the latter is real being identical with the unit of change in phenomena (gunapariņāmasya kşaņatvavacanăt). But even this is real only for our empirical (relative) consciousness (vyutthitadarśana), which intuits the relation of antecedence and sequence into the evolving Reals (Gunas), in the stage of "empirical intuition" (savicārā nirvikalpaprajñā). The "intellectual intuition" (nirvicārā nirvikalpaprajña), on the other hand, apprehends the Reals as they are, without the imported empirical relations of Space, Time, and Causality.”28
It is interesting to contrast this view with the one upheld by Bergson. According to this Samkhya view, the moment is real while the duration is mental construction. Bergson's view is quite opposite. There moment is unreal and duration is real. Moreover, duration of the Samkhya seems to be a series of discrete moments; there is no real interpenetration between a moment that is and a moment that just went before; that is, one does not melt' into the other, so to say. On the other hand in Bergson's durée moments are continuous forming one indivisible flow; its moments melt' into one another and form an organic whole. I feel that this Sāṁkhya view of time is not in tune with their theory of change (parināmavāda). They maintain 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 continuous 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 objectmoments are real and the continuum (santāna) of these discrete objectmoments is mental construction.29
Nyāya-Vaiseșika View : According to this system, Time is a substance. It is one, eternal and all-pervading. It causes movement and change. All perceptible things are perceived as moving, changing,
28 The Positive Sciences of Ancient Hindus (Seal), pp. 19-21.
This exposition is based on Vyasabhāsya and Vijñānabhiksu's
Vārtika on III. 52. 29 Fara: yra ne failu ---Bodhicaryavatāra (Ed. Vaidya), p. 158.