Śrīharṣa on the Indefinability of Time

Abstract

The conception of time as an absolute, eternal and imperishable entity is commonplace in several religious and philosophical systems. In the context of classical Indian philosophy, this position was advocated by the Nyāya school of logic and epistemology. This article presents an outline of the critique of the Nyāya concept of time put forward by Śrīharṣa, a 12th-century scholar in the Advaita Vedānta school of philosophical theology. In his philosophical treatise, the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya, Śrīharṣa dismantles the Nyāya position based on a critical examination of its definition of causality and time-forms. The dismissal of the ontological reality of time is also discussed with reference to the works of two later Advaitins, namely Citsukha and Madhusūdana Sarasvatī.