THE ILLUSION OF TIME
1 Time is an illusion. It’s a very elaborate magic trick (Maya). Time
appears to be flowing from past to present to future, but in reality, this
is not the case. Modern Physics, Advaita Vedanta and (most importantly)
your own experience proves time is an illusion. So how to understand the
illusion of time? It’s actually surprisingly simple, just look at your own
experience of time…
Question: Have I ever experienced the past?
Answer: No. What you experience is a memory of the past. And that memory of
the past is experienced when? Now! In the present moment. Memory is just a
thought (vrtti) in your mind, And when do you perceive your thought in your
mind? Right now. So your memories of the past are actually experienced in
the present, never in the past. Past is just a concept in your mind.
Question: But what about the experiences I actually had in the past. For
example, I experienced my 15th birthday many years ago in the past.
Therefore, I have experienced the past, right?
Answer: Not true. At the time of your 15th Birthday, when did you actually
have that experience? Was it in the past? No, of course not. It was in the
present, at that time. Therefore, even my experiences ‘in’ the past, all
took place in the present at the time they occurred. And any memories of
those experiences are also experienced in the present alone. Therefore, you
have never ever actually experienced the past in reality. All you have ever
experienced is the present moment. Nothing more, nothing less. And this
interestingly, has this experience of the present ever changed from being a
baby tor right now? No, it is a changeless experience of the present.
Question: Have I ever experienced the future?
Answer: No, obviously you have not experienced the future, because it is in
the future! By definition, future is that which has not been experienced
yet. And by the time the future ‘comes into’ my experience, it is no longer
the future – it is the present. Therefore no one has ever experienced the
future. Only the present is experienced.
Question: So what do I experience?
Answer: You have only ever experienced 1 time from the first day of your
birth up until now. And you will continue to experience that same 1 time
always. What is that? The present moment. All experience occurs in the
present, right now. Just sit for a few minutes and think about this,
contemplate on what is being said here. Ask yourself right now – when am I
having this experience of reading these words? Now. And the next experience
in 10mins? Now. And the next one? Now. And the experience I had last week
missing my train at the station? That was ‘now’ also, at that ‘time’.
2 What does this mean? Everything is now. Nothing exists other than ‘now’.
There is no experiential evidence to establish the past or the future. In
fact, even modern physicists support the Vedantic conclusion that there is
no tangible, perceptual evidence to establish the existence of a past or
future. The present moment is the only thing we can ever establish as real.
What does that make time? An illusion, a cosmic and very brilliant trick of
Maya and the mind. But it is possible to see through the trick in the
manner described. As the Albert Einstein said: “People like us, who believe
in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is
only a stubbornly persistent illusion”. He proposed that time is not an
absolute construct but a subjective experience derived from rhythmic
phenomena. Einstein's theory of relativity rejected the idea of an
objective present moment, insisting that past, present, and future are mere
illusions, albeit stubborn ones.
3 What is this ‘now’-ness? Me. I am the experiencer of everything right
now. I am the conscious being in which all time is experienced. In fact,
that now-ness and this consciousness (Atma) that I am are one and the same
thing. All time exists within the present, and the present moment resolves
into me (consciousness) alone. All time exists within myself, the conscious
being. Time is a false superimposition upon the present moment
consciousness. I, Atma, am free from time. I am birthless and deathless. In
Sanskrit we say Atma is ‘Nitya’ (Now-ness, beyond time). Therefore,
meditate on the present moment and discover your true timeless Self.
4 The most common term for time in the *Ṛgveda *is *ṛtu*,{KR not
the RTA system; but rtu (ritu) Ritu Samharam} a word that is closely
associated with the correct time for ritual performance. *Kāla*, which is
the most commonly used term for time in the Upanisads, only occurs once in
the *Ṛgveda, *in 10.42.9, where it also carries the sense of the correct
moment for an action. Although time and ritual are often intertwined in the
oldest Vedic texts, there are also passages in Vedic texts that hint at
other, more complex notions of time, apart from the rhythms of the ritual
calendar.
उत । प्रहाम् । अतिदीव्य । जयाति । कृतम् । यत् । श्वघ्नी । विचिनोति । काले ।
यः । देवकामः । न । धना । रुणद्धि । सम् । इत् । तम् । राया । सृजति ।
स्वधावान् ॥ RV 10 42 9
uta | pra-hām | ati-dīvya | jayāti | kṛtam | yat | śva-ghnī | vi-cinoti |
kāle | yaḥ | deva-kāmaḥ | na | dhanā | ruṇaddhi | sam | it | tam | rāyā |
sṛjati | svadhāvān
When *Ṛgveda *10.90.2 states that *puruṣa*, the primordial is “both
what has been and what will be”, this suggests the existence of a higher
principle that encompasses all of time, an idea that will be further
developed in the Upanisads.
पुरुष एवेदं सर्वं यद्भूतं यच्च भव्यम् । उतामृतत्वस्येशानो यदन्नेनातिरोहति ॥
puruṣa evedaṃ sarvaṃ yad bhūtaṃ yac ca bhavyam | utāmṛtatvasyeśāno yad
annenātirohati ||RV 10 90 2
“Puruṣa is verily all this (visible world), all that is, and all that is to
be; he is also the lord of immortality; for he mounts beyond (his own
condition) for the food (of living beings).”
5 While the notion of abstract time as a cosmic principle is already
present in the remarkable hymns to time (*kāla*) in the *Atharvaveda**, *which
presents time as the creator of all things, this idea becomes more
pervasive in the Upanisads as well. The *Atharvaveda *also hints at the
existence of two forms of time, one associated with this world and one with
the highest heaven. {Atharvaveda 19. 53.3: pūrṇáḥ kumbhó ʹdhi kālá ā́hitas
táṃ vaí páśyāmo bahudhā́ nú sántam
/ sá imā́ víśvā bhúvanāni pratyáṅ kāláṃ tám āhúḥ paramé vyòman (“A full
beaker is placed on Time. We see him being in many forms. He carries away
all these beings. They call him Time in the highest heaven”)
6 The *Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa *similarly contrasts “whatever is on this side
of the sun, night and day” with “immortality”, which is located beyond the
sun, which seems to imply a contrast between temporality and a different,
atemporal state.
7 The *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad*, the oldest of the extant Upanishadic
texts, fuses time and space into an integrated whole in the striking image
that opens the text:
The dawn is the head of the sacrificial horse. The sun is its eye, the wind
is its breath, and its open mouth is the fire common to all men. The year
is the body (*ātman*) of the sacrificial; While the earliest Upanisads are
embedded in the textual traditions of the *śākhās *that transmitted them,
andoccasionally deeply connected with the Brāhmaṇa texts of those *śākhās *(as
in the case of the *Bṛhadārayaka*, *Aitareya*, or *Kena Upaniṣad*), later
Upaniṣads such as the *Māṇḍūkya *do not have more than a nominal connection
to the older Vedic textual corpus.
8 The various calendrical divisions of time, such as day, night,
fortnights, and months are part of the cosmic architecture of the worlds
through which a person travels after death in *Brahadaranyaka Upanisads *
6.2.15‐16. Here, a person of knowledge travels after death from the
(funeral) fire to the day, to the fortnight of the waxing moon, to the six
months when the sun travels north, and then to the world of the gods, the
sun, and the region of lightning. The afterlife journey of a person who has
no such knowledge but instead offers pious sacrifices, on the other hand,
goes through smoke, night, the fortnight of the waning moon, the six months
when the sun travels south, the world of the fathers, and the moon, and
then back to the earth as rain. Significantly, divisions of time such as
days, nights, and fortnights are here parts of the fabric of the cosmos
itself, as much a part of the empirical world
as the sun or the moon.
1 Verse 6.2.15:
ते य एवमेतद्विदुः, ये चामी अरण्ये श्रद्धां सत्यमुपासते, तेऽर्चिरभिसंभवन्ति,
अर्चिषोऽहः, अह्न आपूर्यमाणपक्शम्, आपूर्यमाणपक्शाद्यान्षण्मासानुदङ्ङादित्य
एति; मासेभ्यो देवलोकम्, देवलोकादादित्यम्, आदित्याद्वैद्युतम्;
तान्वैद्युतान्पुरुषो
मानस एत्य ब्रह्मलोकान् गमयति; ते तेषु ब्रह्मलोकेषु पराः परावतो वसन्ति; तेषां
न पुनरावृत्तिः ॥ १५ ॥
te ya evametadviduḥ, ye cāmī araṇye śraddhāṃ satyamupāsate,
te'rcirabhisaṃbhavanti, arciṣo'haḥ, ahna āpūryamāṇapakśam,
āpūryamāṇapakśādyānṣaṇmāsānudaṅṅāditya eti; māsebhyo devalokam,
devalokādādityam, ādityādvaidyutam; tānvaidyutānpuruṣo mānasa etya
brahmalokān gamayati; te teṣu brahmalokeṣu parāḥ parāvato vasanti; teṣāṃ na
punarāvṛttiḥ || 15 ||
15. Those who know this as such, and those others who meditate with faith
upon the Satya-Brahman in the forest, reach the deity identified with the
flame, from him the deity of the day, from him the deity of the fortnight
in which the moon waxes, from him the deities of the six months in which
the sun travels northward, from them the deity identified with the world of
the gods, from him the sun, and from the sun the deity of lighthing. (Then)
a being created from the mind (of Hiraṇyagarbha) comes and conducts them to
the worlds of Hiraṇyagarbha. They attain perfection and live in those
worlds of Hiraṇyagarbha for a great many superfine years. They no more
return to this world.
Now in order to answer the first question it is being stated: Those who
know this meditation on the five fires as such, as described above—the word
‘such’ refers to the five fires described in terms of fire, fuel,, smoke,
flame, cinder, sparks, faith (liquid offerings), etc., so the meaning
is—those who know these five fires as above.(PANCHAGNI WORSHIP)
अथ ये यज्ञेन दानेन तपसा लोकाञ्जयन्ति, ते धूममभिसंभवन्ति, धूमाद्रात्रिं,
रात्रेरपक्शीयमाणपक्शम्, अपक्शीयमाणपक्शाद्यान्षण्मासान्दक्शिणादित्य
एति, मासेभ्यः
पितृलोकम्, पितृलोकाच्चन्द्रम्; ते चन्द्रं प्राप्यान्नं भवन्ति, तांस्तत्र
देवा यथा सोमं राजानमाप्यायस्वापक्शीयस्वेति, एवमेनांस्तत्र भक्शयन्ति; तेषां
यदा तत्पर्यवैत्यथेममेवाकाशमभिनिष्पद्यन्ते, आकाशाद्वायुम्;
वायोर्वृष्टिम्, वृष्टेः
पृथिवीम्; ते पृथिवीं प्राप्यान्नं भवन्ति, ते पुनः पुरुषाग्नौ हूयन्ते, ततो
योषाग्नौ जायन्ते लोकान्प्रत्युथायिनः; त एवमेवानुपरिवर्तन्ते; अथ य एतौ
पन्थानौ न विदुस्ते कीटाः पतङ्गा यदिदं दन्दशूकम् ॥ १६ ॥
इति द्वितीयं ब्राह्मणम् ॥
atha ye yajñena dānena tapasā lokāñjayanti, te dhūmamabhisaṃbhavanti,
dhūmādrātriṃ, rātrerapakśīyamāṇapakśam,
apakśīyamāṇapakśādyānṣaṇmāsāndakśiṇāditya eti, māsebhyaḥ pitṛlokam,
pitṛlokāccandram; te candraṃ prāpyānnaṃ bhavanti, tāṃstatra devā yathā
somaṃ rājānamāpyāyasvāpakśīyasveti, evamenāṃstatra bhakśayanti; teṣāṃ yadā
tatparyavaityathemamevākāśamabhiniṣpadyante, ākāśādvāyum; vāyorvṛṣṭim,
vṛṣṭeḥ pṛthivīm; te pṛthivīṃ prāpyānnaṃ bhavanti, te punaḥ puruṣāgnau
hūyante, tato yoṣāgnau jāyante lokānpratyuthāyinaḥ; ta
evamevānuparivartante; atha ya etau panthānau na viduste kīṭāḥ pataṅgā
yadidaṃ dandaśūkam || 16 ||
iti dvitīyaṃ brāhmaṇam ||
16. While those who conquer the worlds through sacrifices, charity and
austerity, reach the deity of smoke, from him the deity of the night, from
him the deity of the fortnight in which the moon wanes, from him the
deities of the six months in which the sun travels southward, from them the
deity of the world of the Manes, and from him the moon. Reaching the moon
they become food. There the gods enjoy them as the priests drink the-
shining Soma juice (gradually, saying, as it were), ‘Flourish, dwindle.’
And when their past work is exhausted, they reach (become like) this ether,
from the ether air, from air rain, and from rain the earth. Reaching the
earth they become food. Then they are again offered in the fire of man,
thence in.the fire of woman, whence they are born (and perform rites) with
a view to going to other worlds. Thus do they rotate. While those others
who do not know these two ways become insects and moths, and these
frequently biting things (gnats and mosquitoes).
9 The (ritual) year often functions as a stand‐in for time in general
in the *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, *as in the creation myth narrated in 1.2.4:
He [Death] had a desire: “May a second body (*ātman*) be born for me!” With
his mind, he had intercourse with speech, and Death had intercourse with
hunger. That which was the semen became the year. Before that, the year did
not exist.” How are we to interpret this curious image of time, here
represented by the year, as the offspring
of death, language, and hunger? Perhaps the underlying idea here is that
our concept of time originates in a recognition of transience and decay
(death), in conjunction with desire (hunger) and the ability of language to
create abstractions. By assigning a mythological beginning to the year, and
by implication to time itself, this Upanisads hints that time is not an
eternally existing thing, but a construct.
uṣā vā aśvasya medhyasya śiraḥ. sūryaś cakṣur vātaḥ prāṇo vyāttam agnir
vaiśvānaraḥ. saṃvatsara ātmāśvasya
medhyasya. dyauḥ pṛṣṭham antarikṣam udaraṃ pṛthivī pājasyaṃ diśaḥ pārśve
avāntaradiśaḥ parśava ṛtavo ʹ ṅgāni
māsāś cārdhamāsāś ca parvāṇy ahorātrāṇi pratiṣṭhā nakṣatrāṇy asthīni nabho
māṃsāny ūvadhyaṃ sikatāḥ sindhavo
gudā yakṛc ca klomānaś ca parvatā oṣadhayaś ca vanaspatayaś ca lomāni.
udyan pūrvārdho nimlocañ jaghanārdhaḥ.
bhūtāya svāhety agnau hutvā manthe saṃsravam avanayati. bhaviṣyate svāhety
agnau hutvā manthe saṃsravam
avanayati.
so ʹkāmayata dvitīyo ma ātmā jāyeteti. sa manasā vācaṃ mithunaṃ samabhavad
aśanāyāṃ mṛtyuḥ. tad yad reta āsīt
sa saṃvatsaro ʹbhavat. na ha purā tataḥ saṃvatsara āsa.
10 However, the *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad *also speculates that time
itself may be the origin of all things. In *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad *1.5.14‐15,
the creator god Prajāpati is himself likened to the year and its
components: “Prajāpati is the year, consisting of sixteen parts. His nights
consist of fifteen parts, but his sixteenth part is constant. With his
nights, he waxes and wanes. On the night of the new moon he enters into all
that has life, and is born again in the morning.” The creator god Prajāpati
is here identified with time itself in the form of the year and its lunar
months, which brings to mind the well‐known hymn to time in the *Atharvaveda
*19.53, which identifies Time (*kāla*) as the father of
the creator god Prajāpati and claims time as the ultimate origin of all
things.
11 The idea that the creator god Prajāpati consists of sixteen parts can
be traced back to the *Vājasaneyī Saṃhitā *of the *Yajurveda *(8.36),
cp. *Śatapathabrāhmaṇa
*7.2.2.17. Since the number sixteen is frequently associated with totality
in Vedic literature, it makes sense that the
originator of all things is also made up of sixteen parts. However, in this
passage from the *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, *it is interesting to note that
of the sixteen parts that make up the totality of the year, fifteen parts
wax and wane, while one part remains constant *(dhruva*). This notion that
time can be divided into a transient part and a constant, unchanging one,
foreshadows the later Upanishadic idea that fleeting, transitory time can
contrast with something eternal and timeless.
12 The *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad *also delves deeper into the idea of time
as something closely intertwined with suffering. The lesser philosopher Aśvala
observes in his debate with Yājñavalkya, the protagonist of the text,
in *Bṛhadāraṇyaka
Upaniṣad *3.1.4 that “this whole world is gripped by days then and nights”
and asks how a patron of a sacrifice can free himself from this cruel grip
of time. The movement of time is here explicitly tied to ritual, as so
often in the older Vedic texts, but in this
passage, time is also viewed as a form of suffering, something a person
might wish to free himself from. In his response to Aśvala, the sage
Yājñavalkya points to principles beyond the mutations of time, such as
fixed ritual roles and the sun, wind, and moon, timeless elements that
offer comfort and stability to the person caught in the grip of time.
However, later in the same text, Yājñavalkya introduces Gārgī
to the idea that the passage of time itself is under the command
of a higher “imperishable” principle: “At the command of this imperishable,
Gārgī, moments and hours, days and nights, half‐months and months, seasons
and years stand apart” (3.8.9). While
Aśvala articulates the predicament of a person controlled by time,
Yājñavalkya points to a higher reality that controls time itself.
Yājñavalkya argues in his dialogue with Gārgī that it is the self (*ātman*),
“before which the year revolves, along with its days”(4.4.16),…..
({{{ sa eṣa saṃvatsaraḥ prajāpatiḥ ṣoḍaśakalaḥ. tasya rātraya eva
pañcadaśa kalāḥ. dhruvaivāsya ṣoḍaśī kalā. sa rātribhir
evā ca pūrvato ʹpa ca kṣīyate. so ʹmāvāsyāṃ rātrim etayā ṣoḍaśyā kalayā
sarvam idaṃ prāṇabhṛd anupraviśya tataḥ
prātar jāyate.
13 For a full discussion of the puruṣa/brahman consisting of sixteen parts,
Atharvaveda 19.53.8.
idaṃ sarvam ahorātrābhyām āptaṃ.
etasya vā akṣarasya praśāsane gārgi nimeṣā muhūrtā ahorātrāṇy ardhamāsā
māsā ṛtavaḥ saṃvatsarā iti vidhṛtās
tiṣṭhanti.
yasmād arvāk saṃvatsaro ‘hobhiḥ parivartate. This is stanza 17 in the
Mādhyaṃdina recension.
Gārgī here uses the metaphor of weaving to indicate a cosmic construction
of reality.}}})
…….. establishing the eternal, unchangeable nature of the *ātman *as
something that is set apart from and higher than the passing of time.
In their dialogue about the ultimate origin of all things in *Bṛhadāraṇyaka
Upaniṣad *3.8, Gārgī pushes Yājñavalkya to explain the origins of both the
material world and of time itself: “That which is above the sky, that which
is below the earth, and that which is between heaven and earth, and that
which they call past, present, and future—on what, Yājñavalkya, are these
woven back and Yājñavalkya’s answer is that all of these things she lists,
including the divisions of time such as past, present, and future are
“woven back and forth” on space, hinting, perhaps, that he views space as
the origin of time. However, the ultimate origin of all things, including
both space and time is, according to Yājñavalkya, the highest *brahman *itself.
While some parts of the *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad *still resonate with older
notions of time as liturgical and ritual, we can also trace a gradual
development of a notion of time as an ontological principle in this text,
especially in the statements ascribed to Yājñavalkya.
14 The *Chāndogya Upaniṣad *similarly posits that a higher reality
exists beyond the mutations of time; this text claims that when someone
“knows *Upanisads *of *brahman *in this way – for him the sun does
not rise or set; for him it is always day” (3.11.3). Here, timelessness is
not just associated with *brahman *itself, but also with a person who
possesses the correct knowledge of *brahman. *{{{KR Again this kind of many
brahmans arise only by not leaning towards the ADVAITHAM}}} THE BRAHMAM IS
ONE AND MANIFESTED SOULS WHEN GETS BACK IN ONNESS WITH THE BRAHMAM, MANY IS
ONE AND ONE ARE MANY IS THE ADVAITHAM}}} The idea that knowledge can help a
human being access an eternal reality is of course central to all the
Upanisads*.*
*15 “Thinking about the timeless Being is the fundamental activity of the
being in time” ; in other words, true knowledge of brahman allows a
timebound being to reach a reality that lies beyond all time*. ***
16 The *Chāndogya Upaniṣad *further suggests that time and *brahman *belong
to two entirely different modes of reality, separated by the *ātman*: This
self is a dam, a divider, to keep these worlds apart. Days and nights do
not pass across this dam, and neither do old age, or death, sorrow, or good
and bad deeds. All evil turns back from it, for this world of *brahman *is
free from evil (8.4.1).
17 *The idea that the divisions of time and old age and death have no
access to the world of brahman indicates that brahman is located outside of
time altogether*. However, how are we to understand the image of *ātman, *the
self, that is the dividing line between these two realities? Perhaps what
is implied here is the idea that the self of a human being belongs
simultaneously to two different realities, the realms of time, death, and
suffering, and the realm of the eternal.
18 While we still see some remnants of the idea of time as closely tied
to days and nights and the rhythms of the physical world in the *Chāndogya
Upaniṣad, *later classical Upaniṣads such as the *Śvetāśvatara *present
time as something entirely distinct from the physical world. Here, time is
no longer the ritual year or the passing of days and nights, but an
abstract idea. This Upaniṣad speculates about the possible origin of *brahman
*itself, the invisible cosmic force that permeates all things: “What is the
cause of *brahman*? […] Should we think of it as time, self‐nature,
necessity, coincidence, the elements, birth, or the person (*puruṣa*)?”
(1.1‐2). The theory of time as the ultimate origin of all
things is likely drawn from *Atharvaveda *19.53‐54, as discussed previously.
19 This passage in the *Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad *implies that a form of
*kālavāda*, a doctrine of time as the highest principle and
origin of all things, existed by the time this *Upaniṣad *was composed.
*yad ūrdhvaṃ yājñavalkya divo yad avāk pṛthivyā yad antarā dyāvāpṛthivī
ime yad bhūtaṃ ca bhavac ca bhaviṣyac cety*
*ācakṣate kasmiṃs tad otaṃ ca protaṃ ceti.*
*na ha vā asmā udeti na nimlocati. sakṛd divā haivāsmai bhavati. ya etām
evaṃ bhahmopaniṣadaṃ veda*.
*atha ya ātmā sa setur vidhṛtir eṣāṃ lokānām asaṃbhedāya. naitaṃ setum
ahorātre tarato na jarā na mṛtyur na śoko na*
*sukṛtaṃ na duṣkṛtam. sarve pāpmāno ʹto nivartante.. apahatapāpmā hy eṣā
brahma‐lokaḥ*
*kiṃkāraṇaṃ brahma […]kālaḥ svabhāvo niyatir yadṛcchā bhūtāni yoniḥ
puruṣeti cintyam*. the meaning would be “What is the cause? Brahman?”
However, while time is listed first among all the potential sources of *brahman
*and of the world itself in the *Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad*, this text
ultimately rejects this idea of time as origin in Favor of a personal god
as the ultimate cause of the universe: “Some wise men say it is
self‐nature, but others, who are deluded, say it is time. But it is the
greatness of god in the world by means of which this wheel of *brahman *is
turned around (6.1).”20 This god, Rudra‐Śiva, is called the “architect of
time”
(*kālakāra*, 6.2 and 6.16), which suggests that time is here seen as part
of creation itself rather than a cosmic cause. Rudra’s creative work is
here likened to that of a magician or an illusionist (*māyin*), and
the list of things from which he creates the world includes the past and
the future, as well as such ritual components as meters, sacrifices, rites,
and religious observances (4.9), which hints that time itself is in
this Upanisads
simply a part of the material stuff of the universe. The
creator/illusionist himself is, however, beyond time altogether; he is
“beyond the three times” (i.e., past, present, and future, 6.5).
20 Intriguingly, the very word for “illusion”, *māyā*, is connected
with measurement; the noun is derived from the verbal root *mā*, “to
measure”. While the term *māyā *usually means something
as “creative power” or “the power to measure out space and time” in older
Vedic language, *māyā *is clearly used in the sense of “illusion” in these
stanzas of the *Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, *as in later Advaita‐
Vedānta philosophy. In stanza 4.10, *māyā *(illusion) is identified with
primordial matter, while the illusionist that creates the world is
identified with Rudra‐Śiva. The use of the significant term *māyā*
here hints that the measuring out of finite space and time is somehow the
work of a divine illusionist and suggests that time is something associated
with a fleeting existence in *this *world, rather than
with the highest reality.
K Rajaram IRS 5 3 24
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