History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.40

v6.c82.40

I have confined myself to Sanskrit works and particularly to works of the Vedic school type.⁶⁶⁸ Buddhist and Jaina thinkers had to say a good deal on Kāla. For example, the *Pramāṇa*⁶⁶⁹-*vārtika-bhāṣya* or *Vārtikālaṅkāra* of Prajñākaragupta (about 700 A D.) combats the view of the Vaiśeṣikasūtra and Praśastapāda (quoted above) and holds that there is no separate entity like Kāla, that it is not possible to have the ideas of distant time and near time if Kāla be without beginning and be endless, that the ideas of being distant or near or quick are not distinct from the activities about which they are predicated This Buddhist view practically amounts to saying that time is not a thing, but only an idea, only a subjective condition of human sensorial experiences and intuitions and is non-existent in itself, apart from the subject. On the other hand Jaina⁶⁷⁰ writers hold that there are six *padārthas* viz *jīva*, dharma, adharma, ākāśa, *pudgala* and kāla i. e. Time has separate existence.