Hindu Concept Of Time

2 Pages 471 Words

The Hindu interpretation of time is expressed in various levels. The Hindus considered the history of the universe as a natural process in which everything recurred in periodical cycles, so that nothing really new ever happened. At this level, human existence is a temporal affair. In the Hindu hymn To Dawn, time is thought of as being cyclical – the sun rising and setting, people go to work, go home, go to bed and get up the next day when the sun once again rises. Life is orderly and stable and man participates in a meaningful way with the gods. Once the cycle ends there is death and no after life. You better get it right while you are living because there is not a second chance.

For the Western mind, which believes in single, epoch-making historical events (such as, coming of Christ, or the long development of invention during the course of man’s mastery of nature) this casual comment of the ageless god has a gently minimizing, annihilating effect. It vetoes conceptions of value that are intrinsic to our estimation of man, his life; his destiny and task.

This belief corresponds precisely to the Indian tradition of a perennial philosophy, an ageless wisdom revealed and revealed, restored, lost, and again restored through the cycles of ages.
The Greeks had great historians who investigated and described the history of their times; but….the history of the universe they considered as a natural process in which everything recurred in periodical cycles, so that nothing really new ever happened.
This is precisely the idea of time underlying Hindu mythology and life.
The history of the universe in its periodic passage from evolution to dissolution is conceived as a biological process of gradual and relentless deterioration, disintegration, and decay. Only after everything has run its course into total annihilation and been then re-incubated in the boundlessness of the timeless cosmic night, does the universe rea...