Sūtra 7.1.25 (Time is all-pervading)

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 7.1.25:

कारणेन कालः ॥ ७.१.२५ ॥

kāraṇena kālaḥ || 7.1.25 ||

kāraṇe—in cause: To a specific cause, or to a universal cause; kālaḥ—time.

25. Time (is the name given) to (a specific, or a universal) cause. (Hence, in either case‘it is all-pervading).281

Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:

(English rendering of Śaṅkara Miśra’s commentary called Upaskāra from the 15th century)

He explains the universal expansion of Time:

[Read sūtra 7.1.25 above]

Time is the name which fully designates the substance which is the cause of the intuitions of reciprocal prior and posterior, simultaneity, non-simultaneity, slow, and fast. Such an intuition, common to all persons in all countries, would be imposṣible without the universal pervasion of time. Universal pervasion, that is to say, connection with infinite magnitude, therefore, belongs to it.

Or, in virtue of such intuitions as “born now,” Time is known to be the efficient or occasional cause of all that is produced; and this is dependent upon universal pervasion, for an occasional cause must be, as a rule, in proximity with the combinative and non-combinative causes.

Or, the use or application of past, future, and present is universal: consequently time is all-pervading.

Or, time is the name of the substance which is the cause of the application or use of moments, lavas (thirty-six winks), hours, watches, days, days-and-nights, fortnights, months, seasons, half-years, years, etc. Consequently, such use or application being universal, time is universal, and therefore, infinitely large.

The supposition of its manifoldness is, as has been already stated, contravened by (the fault of) superfluity of supposition.—25.

Here ends the first chapter of the seventh book in the Commentary of Śaṅkara upon the Vaiśeṣika Aphorisms.