India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s14.12

c8.s14.12

The more frequent word for time was *kāla*, although *samaya* and *velā* are also used (III.3.167). According to an unnamed author of a *vārttika* on Pāṇini, VII.3.15, the word *parimāṇa* in the *Ashṭādhyāyī* applies to measures other than those of time (*Bhāshya*, III.321). Pāṇini, however, treats Time as a measure of life (*kālāḥ parimāṇinā*, II.2.5); for example, a person after birth comes under the measure of time as *dvyaha-*, *tryaha-*, *māsa-*, *saṁvatsara-jātaḥ*. On the above *sūtra* Patañjali notes an important fact that time is an entity by which growth and decay of visible objects are indicated and that the movement of the sun (*āditya-gati*, I.409) is responsible for portioning out time into days and nights, months and the year by constant repetition (*asakṛid-āvṛitti*). The sun is referred to as *ahaskara*, maker of the day (III.2.21), and the heavenly bodies as *jyotis* (VI.3.85; *vār.* on I.3.40; *Pat.* I.231). Persons born under the same constellation were called *sajjyoti*.