Kāla

There is no significant body of scholarship that systematically discusses and interprets the Hindu views of time in the way that Aristotelian scholarship has done in the West. Although Anindita Balslev (1983, 1993) has recently undertaken to fill this void and a variety of monographs address pieces of the puzzle, issues such as the relationship between time, motion, and soul remain unaddressed. Neither have the contributions of Hindu astrology to the understanding of time advanced much beyond the translations of some basic texts (Yavanajātaka, Vṛddhayavanajātaka, Bṛhat Saṃhitā, and Bṛhad Jāṭaka). However, there can be little doubt that the astrological sciences contributed significantly to concepts such as the moment (kṣaṇa, nimeṣa), destiny (niyati), and duration of life (āyus). Studies of time in Hindu myth and ritual are plentiful, but, with the exception of Madeline Biardeau (1981), narrowly focused. Nor have studies of time in India taken sufficient account of cross-cultural comparison, though again, and rather randomly, exceptions would include Michael Witzel (1984) on archaeoastronomy, Wilhelm Halbfass (1992) in Heidegger studies, and Romila Thapar (1991, 1996, 1997) on the vexing problem of “the supposed absence of history.” A short chapter such as this will not provide the needed remedy. What it will attempt is to highlight these and other issues by exploring the richness of Hindu insights into the problem of time from multiple perspectives, including both non-Hindu Indian views as well as corresponding concerns within the Hellenistic world.