Nature of Time

Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Z_Mahavir_Jain_Vidyalay_Suvarna_Mahotsav_Granth_Part_1_012002.pdf and Mahavir_Jain_Vidyalay_Suvarna_

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74 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
Nāgasena maintains that time is a product of ignorance. For the enlightened there is no time. In the Abhidhammatthasamgaho we find stated that time is a subjective element, the concept (kalapaññatti) by which we in our internal intuition distinguish our first and foremost states; that it is the sine qua non of the succession of mental states. 46
The Madhyamikas maintain that even from the empirical point of view Time is unsubstantial. It is admittedly not an object of perception. They-past, present and future-appear to be existences due to our tendency to objectify concepts. It is impossible to conceive time either as a permanent immutable entity causing things or as an existent. The reasons given against the first view are as follows. It cannot be a cause. As the cause of the state of production (of a particular thing) is eternal, that state the thing will have eternally. Again, the thing whose cause is presumed immutable (Time) should really be uncaused or caused at random. It is so because a cause to produce an effect must transform itself into the effect and cease to exist. The arguments adduced against the second view are as follows. The divisions of Time into the Past, Present and Future are vital to its conception. The Present and the Future are what they are in relation to the Past; they should therefore exist in the past, for they are dependent on it. If so, they too would be included in the past, or the latter would be indistinguishable from the present and the future. If, to avoid this, it were held that the present and the future do not exist in the past, relative to what are they the present and the future? A non-relative present or future is not possible; and without distinctions, time too is unavailable. The same arguments may be urged, mutatis mutandis, with regard to the existence of the past or the present in the present and the future, etc. Time might be thought to exist in relation to things that change. But as changing things (bhāva) are untenable, the reality of Time too is not established.47
Kamalaśila shows the futility of time in the following manner. When the speaker addresses a person with the words 'this is prior',
this is posterior' with reference to objects or events taking place successively a particular impression (ābhoga) is formed in the mind of the latter. This impression gives rise to the knowledge that things thus referred to are prior or posterior. Thus temporal order being otherwise explainable time is not accepted by the Buddhists. Again, as
46 The Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. IX (1933), p. 153. 47 The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (Murti), pp. 198-200.