Portrait of Jain Religion

Author(s): Narendra Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 18

Nothing else exists. These six entities have existed for ever and are eternal. They may with the passage of time undergo transformation, but in intrinsic terms they are a permanent feature of the universe and its natural environment. No one has created them, nor can any one destroy them. The concept of time is its eternal, infinite and cyclical nature. There is no beginning or end of time. Tattvartha Sutra, a highly regarded second century Jain scripture describes the function of time as follows: .
“Bringing about incessant, minute, imperceptible change; perceptibletransformation, activity, anteriority and posteriority are the functions of
time.” Time (kala) measures changes in living beings and non-living substances, but it is not the cause of such changes. A child becomes a youth and then an adult and finally an old person who eventually dies. In other words what may be new at the birth becomes in course of time old and worn out. Silver extracted from mines changes its form when converted into an ornament. A full cycle of time consists of two halves, namely a period of ascent (Utsarpini) followed by a period of descent (Avasarpini). Each of these two periods has six divisions (aras). The level and intensity of happiness, age span, state of health and nature of progress and prosperity etc changes from division to division. In the Utsarpini period, the six divisions begin with unhappyunhappy ara and move on to unhappy, unhappy-happy, happyunhappy, happy and at the climax happy-happy ara (division). Then begins the descent towards avasarpiri period beginning in the reverse order as illustrated in the diagram below:
A Portrait of Jain Religion