Part 4.2 - Kāla and Karma

[Full title: Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa and Karman (2): Kāla and Karma]

Puruṣakāra and daiva though parts of Karma, are contrasted on the basis of Time. Time (Kāla) is also considered an important factor along with action (Karma) for the functioning of the world.^[1] Often time is equated with the daiva counterpart of Karma in the later literature in connection with Karmavipāka or fruition of karma.

Kāla is accorded the quality of bringing to fruition the past actions. Ādiparvan (1.1. 188-191) elaborates the working of Kāla as to ripen and then decay the beings.^[2] This function of Kāla was perhaps subordinate to the early culture yet work on a certain time could lead to a desired future was a thought prevalent in the culture since very early times. Ṛgveda (III. 8.5.) mentions the utility of an auspicious day for planting a sacrificial post and the resultant prosperity. Ritual actions on the parvan of Prajāpati, a personification of Kāla, representing a Saṃvatsara was a regular practice in the Brāhmaṇa period.

In the later flow of thought, the culture ascribed activity to matter and materialistic forms. All actions were said to be performed by the guṇas (constituents)of the primordial matter (Prakṛti), thereby qualities were connected with matter. Guṇa (quality) and Karma are essentially related to the substance whereas Kāla is amūrta (non-embodied / formless) and is an acting force in bringing forth the activity (whether good or bad) residing in the substance. Thereby, if Karma qualitatively specificies the cosmic activity (of material forms), than Kāla can be termed as the record or account of that particular activity. This quality of Kāla is expressed in the literature as keeping an account of days, nights and its other fractions and causing sufferings.^[3] Further these divisions of Kāla as day and night and such factors also are said to arise due to activity of the material cosmic objects as the Sun and the Moon resulting in light and darkness. The study of these qualities of cosmic matter, the resulting Kāla and its effects on human and cosmic future continued till the period of Varāha.^[4]

Also since the activity of the cosmic matter becomes the cause of cosmic time, the variations in the cosmic activity can also be said as the cause of the variations in cosmic time. A mutual dependency arises here as time becomes an operation of Karma and Karma depends on time for its fruition. A study of any such unit of time can be a ready reckoner for providing information about the activity of the cosmos stored in it in the form of characteristics or qualities.

A study of the characteristics of the cosmos occurs very early in the Veda in form of the natural phenomenon represented by the deities. The order in the cosmos and one process changing into the next one resulting in a successive changeability of events is recorded with the aid of time and its units. Also a complete change in the characteristics occur at some point of time and the moment which brings forward this change is also discovered in the form of the joints of days and nights, the New Moon and the Full Moons, the Ṛtusandhis, the Uttarāyana and the Dakṣiṇāyana occurring due to the motion of the heavenly objects. The notion of future and the impending auspicious or inauspicious happening is made dependent on this change and the unit of time which brings out this change in the Veda.

On part of the moment, it being a carrier of the stored cosmic activity inclusive of the characteristic in it and being devoid of any quality of its own since it is non-embodied; this quality of the cosmos becomes an identity of that particular moment. Inversely, the moment which carries it is a witness of that specific activity lying in it and also a witness of the change it may lead to, in the next successive moment, as the activity may proceed. Thereby any such moment becomes a sign or a mark for that particular activity.

Veda and the later period has utilized the strength of the moment and the further units of time to seek knowledge about the impending future from the variety of cosmic activity which lie in the divisions of time. Long time spans as Kalpa, Yuga, Manvantara and such spans have been studied in the relation with the quality of the cosmos and the moments of the beginning of these time spans have been calculated and studied to understand their effects on man and cosmos and also to calculate the age of the cosmos.

Apart from the variety in the cosmos from which activity arises or is stored in the form of characteristics and is brought forth by time, the culture has discovered certain part of the cosmos as non-active or without activity or motion. The concept is present in the expression of the all pervading Brahman in the Upaniṣads or later in the notion of the non modified part of the primordial matter of the Sāṃkhya philosophy or else in Sun without parts. The idea of time beyond its three parts as past, present and future offers a connectivity to such parts of the cosmos. The negation of time or time as a whole or else the timelessness of the universe follow such regions of cosmos which explicitly refer to a time plane rendered superior than its other counter parts which differentiate on account of variable activity.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Mahābhārata 12.34. 75

[2]:

Mahābhārata I 1.188.

[3]:

Mahābhārata 12.220 97-98.

[4]:

Bhāratīya Jyotiṣaśāstra, p. 216.