Time (kala)

Time is described as very powerful and unavoidable, sparing no living being; it consists of endless instants, neither increases nor decreases owing to its agurulaghu quality, is beginningless and endless, subtle, indivisible and formless, and is marked by vartanā, the cause of the subtle change of every substance at every instant.

A footnote says verse 2 describes ultimate (paramārtha) time.

Absolute time is described as formless (without touch, taste, smell or colour) and actionless, present as one atom in each point of cosmic space, beyond the senses and known only through omniscience; conventional time is that by which years, months, days, ghaṭīs, hours and minutes are reckoned from sunrise and the like.

A footnote defines one samaya as the time an atom of matter (pudgala paramāṇu) takes to move slowly from one point of space to the next.

A footnote defines one matra of time as the time taken to circle the knee once with the hand and snap the fingers; it is used to time how long an ear-filling is held.

Among the factors to be weighed in treatment, the introduction says time (kāla) is of three kinds: cold, hot and rainy.

Time is said not to be directly perceived but inferred, and to be of two kinds: absolute or ultimate (niścaya, paramārtha) time and conventional (vyavahāra) time.

Units of conventional time: innumerable samayas make one āvalī, numerable āvalīs one ucchvāsa, seven ucchvāsas one stoka, seven stokas one lava and thirty-eight lavas one nāḍī.

Two nāḍīs make a muhūrta, thirty muhūrtas a day, fifteen days a fortnight, the bright and dark fortnights a month; the twelve months from Caitra contain six seasons, three seasons make an ayana (southern or northern), and the two ayanas a year.