History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c38.s4.3

v1.c38.s4.3

The idea of past, present and future gives us also an idea of linear time which is as if something is moving forward from the moment of creation. The Eurocentric imagination has introduced modernism, progress in place of future and has assimilated what is best of other cultures, first as a philosophical method then as a political method (revolution) and as an artistic method (avant garde). Modernity never looks, towards individual, rather looks towards human race through progress. There are also words like muhūrta (constant), kṣaṇa (moment) as ultimate unit of time. The followers of yoga school of Patañjali imagine that there is an uninterrupted flow of time of these moments. Ilya Prigogine, the Noble Laureate and the eminent theoretical Physicist has explained the idea of instant with a beautiful example with reference to Indian Culture. He says, be it a dancing Śiva or a miniature in temple - in which there appears very clearly the search for a junction between stillness and motion, time arrested and time passing. The instant is just like a window to the other side of time-eternity. The other world can be glimpsed in the flash of its existence. This reconciles among past, present and eternity. Indians had concepts of time but did not try to reconcile them in life with terrestrial activities, possibly because of religio-philosophical orientation in the society.