Time. In the history of philosophy the nature of time has been one of the most persistent and difficult problems. The Greeks had two words: (1) chronos and (2) aiōn. Chronos, which is used by Homer, and the Attic poets and from which we get words such as "chronology," is used in a variety of senses, but primarily it means a period of time: clock time, as we say. A also used by Homer and the Attic poets, generally means, rather, an age, an epoch, an era. Both words occur in the New Testament, where aiōn is often used to contrast the present age from others that were or are to come. The adjective aiōnios, "age-long" has a vague sense of "going on forever," yet not in any technical sense of eternity; rather, an incalculably long period contrasted with that which is fleeting.
In much of the thought of antiquity, East and West, time was thought of in cyclic terms. For example, Heraclitus calculated that the world's time cycle is 10,000 years, i.e., in that space of time everything would go back to where it started and would start all over again. In India and China various philosophers made similar calculations, e.g., ShaoYung, a Neo-Confucian writing in the 11th c. CE, still proposed such a calculation, providing, however, for a much longer cycle: 129,800 years.
Plato's definition of time as "the moving image of eternity" is wellknown. Time embodies forms in the receptacle of space. Aristotle concluded that the world is eternal in the sense that it had no beginning. Augustine, probably more aware than anyone in the ancient world of the paradoxes attending the concept of time, confessed his puzzlement at the notion. Thomas Aquinas, although admitting that from a rational standpoint Aristotle had been right in asserting that the world has no beginning, thought that the Bible says otherwise and so he bowed to revelation as superior to reason. He recognized, moreover, a distinction between aeternitas (eternity) and aeviternitas (infinite time). Spinoza regarded time as an inadequate perception of a limited reality. If we could see the real as a whole it would be eternality. This view implies that in our perception of time we are perceiving what is in some sense illusory. Newton thought that whatever may be the relativities that we perceive in time, there is behind it all an absolute time that flows irrespective of anything else. Leibniz saw time as the order of successive existence, relative to the actualization of the monads of his system. More recent thinkers have developed concepts of time that draw partly from advances in mathematics and the natural sciences. Henri Bergson defined time as qualitative change, having its own inner duration in an irreversible becoming. Time is better apprehended by a special form of intuition rather than by reason, which spatializes it and thereby destroys its unique significance. The German mathematician Hermann Minkowski ( 1864-1909) joined time to the three dimensions of space, making it a fourth dimension. All events are determinately present in the space-time continuum. His student, Albert Einstein adopted this concept of time as a fourth dimension and developed it. Time remains, nevertheless, an extremely complex, not to say baffling question and one that is of paramount relevance to religious thought See also History.
時 [py] shí [wg] shih [ko] 시 shi [ja] ジ ji ||| (1) Time. A certain time or hour. A season. An opportunity. (2) All the time, always. From time to time. [Buddhism] (3) In Consciousness-only theory, one of the twenty-four elemental construct (法) not concomitant with mind. (6) Sequential time. The "time" established based on the discrimination of past, present and future (adhvan). (7) Situation, condition (avasthā). (8) From time to time. (9) Now; in the present world.
time : (m.) kāla; samaya; avasara; vāra. (f.) velā. (v.t.) kālaṃ niyameti or miṇāti. (pp.) niyamitakāla || at all times: (adv.) sabbadā; at any time: (ind.) yadā kadāci; at the same time: taṅkhaṇam eva; tad'eva; for a long time: (ind.) cirāya; from time to time: kālena kālaṃ; in time: (adv.) yathāsamayaṃ.
rtogs pa
[tenses]
- rtogs
- rtogs
- rtogs
- rtogs
[translation-san] {LCh,MSA,MV,C} adhigama
[translation-san] {MSA} abhigamana
[translation-san] {C} budhyati
[translation-san] {C} buddha
[translation-san] {MSA,C} avabodha
[translation-san] {C} avabodhana
[translation-san] {C} pratibodha
[translation-san] {MSA} boddhṛ
[translation-san] {MSA} bodha
[translation-san] {MSA} vibodha
[translation-san] {MV} anubudhyana
[translation-san] {MV} anubodha
[translation-san] {MV} praveśa
[translation-san] {C} pratiparsīran
[translation-san] {C,MSA} pratividdha
[translation-san] {MSA} prativedha
[translation-san] {C} pratividhyati
[translation-san] {C,MSA} prativedha
[translation-san] {C} pratisaṃvidhyati
[translation-san] {C,MSA} samaya
[translation-san] {nir √īkṣ} : {MSA}nirīkṣate
[translation-san] {L} parikṣā
[translation-san] {L} prajñā
[translation-san] {MSA} pratipatti
[translation-san] pratipad, adhigama
[translation-eng] {Hopkins} realize; cognize; understand; realization
[translation-eng] {C} obtained; understood; able to make progress; penetrated to; penetrates to; penetration; time; epoch; re-union; sacrament; understanding; recognition; wake up to; reach understanding; investigation; wisdom; insight
dus
[translation-san] {C,MSA,MV} kāla
[translation-san] {C} kāli
[translation-san] {C} adhvan
[translation-san] {MV} adhva
[translation-san] {MV} avasthā
[translation-san] {MSA} samaya
[translation-eng] {Hopkins} time; occasion
[translation-eng] {C} period (of time)
[comments] one of the five associational causes (mtshungs ldan lnga); for others see: mtshungs ldan
nam
[translation-eng] {Hopkins} or; and; when; time
[comments] nam is also used as a question particle; see example 3
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