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Time
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Aristotle, that every time-unit is an independent ‘now" and not a transition point, emerging from the past and flowing towards the future.
We have seen how the past and the future, according to Aristotle, depend on distinctions of positions in Space, successively occupied by a moving point. Although the Jaina's do not connect real Time with Motion or Space, they explain the distinctions of past, pressent and future by resorting to the example of the phenomena connected with a point in motion. The author of the Tattvārtha-sāra says:
यथानुसारत: पंक्तितबहुनामिह शाखिनाम्। क्रमेण कस्यचित् पुंसः एक कानेकहं प्रति ।। सम्प्राप्त: प्राप्नुवन् प्राप्सन् व्यपदेशः प्रजायते : द्रव्याणामपि कालाणूस्तथानुसरतामिमान् ।। पर्यायंचानुभवतां वर्तनाया यथाक्रमम्।
भूतादिव्यवहारस्य गुरुभिः सिद्धिरिष्यते॥ ३-५१-५३ A man wanting to pass a row of many trees passes by them
one by one. While passing on, he has trees which he has already passed, trees which he is in the act of passing and trees which he is yet to pass. So with respect to the row of trees, there come up the distinctions of past, present and future. In the same way, say the teachers, distinctions of past, etc, etc., arise when substances feel (i.e. undergo) their respective modifications and come in contact with the time-units
(one after the other). It would appear from the above that distinctions of past, present and future do not really pertain to the Kālāņus or ultimate time-reals. They are all simultaneous; their psychological counterparts are the feelings of 'now'. This fact, as already observed and as pointed out by Aristotle, accounts for our apprehension of Time as one. At the same time, the Kālāņus are all distinct and it is they that condition changes in things. For this reason, although the terms past, present and future are applicable only to the modifications of things and their accompaniments, the Vyavahāra Kāla or our empirical timings, they are, by transference of epi
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