Hi Friends, how are you! I hope all of you are doing well. Today let us venture into one of the most fascinating topics – TIME. We will explore it as an integral part of ancient scriptures.
What is time? Please don’t say it is 6 am already, I have lotta deadlines! Cursing apart, what is TIME? Have you ever thought of it? Have you stopped for a second and thought what is a “second”? Have you thought why our day is divided into hours and each hour has 60 minutes and so on? Why not 100 minutes, after all its the matter of scaling right (we could define duration of an hour such that 1 hr = 100 min)? Have you thought what is past and future? Have you wondered where the past is? You have read until this line from the start. Where is that event stored? Can you show me? or show others or yourself again? What does it mean to have passed through series of moments? etc.
My point is, we deal with time every day. We live through time. Yet, we hardly spend time on time itself. Science, specially the theory of relativity, will boggle your head if you venture to understand time the Science way. Not that it is wrong, it is absolutely right, of course! But, it is still a limitation of analytical mind which is constrained by time and hence, results in applicability rather than giving us proper understanding. Formula of sugar – fructose/glucose does not help us taste the taste of sugar. Same is case with TIME. Mathematical formulation and its application in atomic clocks does not help us “realize” the time, but we need to meditate on TIME through time to get to TIME.
This is where, seers come to our rescue. They have concentrated on that aspect of time which is needed to be understood by layman. TIME is of course multi facet element, whose complex side is being decoded (still undergoing research- Quantum time-reversal, etc.) by present day scientists. But, its simpler side, too simple that it slips from our incoherent comprehension just like water in our hand. Seers have caught that simpler and more useful for day-to-day life element of TIME, with their coherent meditative realizations, into plethora of symbols and pantheons of ideas.
Seers, having realized the Omni-ness of the Uni-verse, discovered that TIME is verily the supreme lord. They call the ultimate time as “Kāla Puruṣa (Time-God)“. To extol the play of this time-god, they weaved many symbols. Two of those symbols often present themselves when we read “World Scriptures” – not only that of ancient India. They are:
According to them, there are two faces to the aspect of time. As time constrained beings, we experience past-present-future as a succession of events. We also experience it as that succession which never ceases as long as we are conscious. This experience of ceaseless motion of sense of succession of events is what they called “SARPA/Crawling Snake”. These snakes have their body attached to the ground (or water) while they crawl i.e., they are tightly bound to the material world. They regenerate their skin periodically to symbolize the periodic reap of karma. Their apparently blind eyes and hissing sound do symbolize our blindness towards the truth and our exhaustion to achieve happiness in the world amidst many difficulties. Their abode being the burrows and dark holes on Earth surely symbolize our affinity to dark deeds and temptations every second. In this way, a crawling snake is a perfect example of humans under the constraint of their karma which germinates as the experience of events called TIME. This experience is called “Vas – To exist” and hence the group of sarpa is categorized under the name – Vāsūki.
If someone crossed the barrier of this sense of succession, they start to evolve like a blooming flower. This blossom of consciousness is symbolized by the unwinding of coiled serpent. A coiled serpent is a perfect symbol of an evolving soul in the path of spiritual life. This coiled serpent is called Nāga = That which heaps like a mountain (due to coiled nature). No wonder they named the evolutionary energy in human as Kundalini – The coiled serpent (33) The Coiled Serpent – Kundalini ). If you notice, sarpa’s have venom which are dangerous to human consciousness i.e., that time is poison to soul-evolution while the nāga’s unveiling nature helps a soul to evolve. This snake, Nāga, is also said to be the bed of Sri Maha Vishnu when he is asleep on the ocean of subjectivity (milk ocean – pure consciousness – 5) Vedic mysticism and Indian Trinity). This bed is said to have 10000 hoods and has infinite coils. That means, the TIME aspect which is the reason for the periodical evolution of infinite Universes as a symphony of God’s music is this snake. It is aptly called “Ananta – The Infinite“.
To hint about this exact detail, did Krishna utter in Gita that “I am Vāsuki among sarpās and Ananta among Nāgās“. At first glance, it may seem ridiculous because, dictionary suggests that naga or sarpa means a snake. But its symbolism is so different. So, Krishna is suggesting that as a sarpa, he conditions us (the problem) while as nāga, he aids us in salvation (the solution).
Now that we have learnt two natures of time in scriptures, did they do anything to measure it? of course they did and if they did not,m we would not have the present timing structure. Let us see how.
The sense of crawling time i.e., the sense of past-present-future, is said to have its origins in a planetary rotations and revolutions. Each planet has its own speed of rotation and this causes a different time-experience by the beings associated with that planet. From principles of astrology, even the revolutions of these planets about each other (in their frames of references) also causes a time experience. Just like our body has head, hands, feet, etc. for specific functions, in astrology, these planets also have specific functions. These functions and effects are what inspired the ancients to take them as instruments to measure TIME itself.
Saturn+Jupiter+Moon are the three orbs of space that gave us clues to measure the time on Earth. Among them, SATURN is most prominent as it is said to reap the KARMA seeds through time for every being no matter what. Jupiter is called Brihaspati or Guru, the MASTER of wisdom. Saturn reaps our karma while Jupiter guides us on right paths. The LCM (least common multiple) of these two planets’ effects is what guides one aspect of our evolution. Saturn takes 30 years and Jupiter 12 years, to revolve around Earth (in our ref. frame). LCM of 30 and 12 is 60. This 60 is the base unit of measure of Seconds as minutes and minutes as hours. Also the ancient division of 60-Ghaṭīs and 60-ViGhaṭīs originated in same sense.
Moon is said to be the mind of Earth or its beings (Chandrama Manaso …. says Vēda). Moon indeed effects our moods and experiences. If nodes of moon – full-moon and no-moon phases are considered, there are 12 full-moon and 12-no-moon phases in one lunar year. Thus, one lunar year has 24 divisions. It is said that 1-human year is 1 day of an angel/Dēva. Therefore, the day of an angel has 24-parts. Also, a human day is an epitome of human-year, is it not? So, the seers divided a day into 24 parts and called it “Hōra” (from which hour was derived). A day and night which comprises of 24 Hōrās is thus named”Ahōrātra = Aḥas (day) +Hōra (divisions) + Rātra (night)“.
Just like we divide our day, which is neutral as such, into many timings (dinner, breakfast, movie, etc.) creation too has a plan and that plan is understood through these divisions of 24 or 60. These two are but small part of grand division scales. You need to venture deep into scriptures to get more understanding as to what divisions they used and why.
While the above time applies to all creation, it occurs on a backdrop and background TIME – ANANTA. Without this backdrop time, there is no crawling time. The support, originator and withdrawer of the sense crawling time is this infinite TIME. Though infinite, seers have pierced through the impenetrable dark theme of it and categorized a structural division which helps us understand the evolutionary scheme of Cosmos as a whole. The measure of crawling time, ends at the day/year measurements of humans. The measure of infinite unwinding time starts there and ends at the life span of “The Creator – BRAHMA”. Let us also note some finer points as we go.
Hindu scriptures are the only existing world scriptures which have the universal time-measures on the scale of billions. It is to be understood that, these values will be either enlarged or contracted as per the subject in consideration. For a Galaxy, Kali Yuga may be different span than the Kali Yuga of a plant kingdom on Earth. The above calculations are with respect to Humans and their associated existence alone. Now, to understand the nature of change, the above time scales act as guiding measuring scales. Thus, these sweeps of time are periodical as Brahma himself is said to be born and dying periodically (as per his span). This infinite periodic emergence of Universe and its evolution, and its plethora of time measures as above, is the symbol of Unwinding SERPENT, called ins scriptures as Serpentine-principle.
Thus we see how time is measured, perceived and symbolized by the ancient seers of wisdom. This is but a millionth part of grand wisdom of time which is buried under the thick veil of intangible symbols. I did my best in removing at-least one speck of dust from the lens of our intuitive lens. I hope it helps you to read clearer the in-between lines of scriptures. I also hope you understood the eternal spiral nature of TIME manifesting as a string of three modes of experience.
PhD (Quantum Physics), M.Sc. (IIT Madras), B.Tech. (LNMIIT).
Bridging the depths of Science and the wisdom of the Vedas
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