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Wellsprings
hindu-cosmosWe're still mapping where this idea was first discussed. Key passages and related ideas below.

Tattva 10 — Time (Kāla)

The fourth cloak: the timeless eternal narrowed into a ticking past, present, and future.

Kāla, as a cloak, is the contraction of timeless eternity into time. The divine consciousness is ever-present, beyond before-and-after; but the bound self is plunged into succession, caught in the flow of past, present, and future, of aging and deadlines and 'too late.' This is the seed of temporal experience — the eternal now narrowed into a ticking sequence.

Key passages(7)

Tantrasāra · Abhinavagupta

High

Tarka-saṃgraha · Annaṃbhaṭṭa

High

Vaiśeṣika-sūtra · Kaṇāda

High

Tantrasāra · Abhinavagupta

High

Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

High

Vijñāna-bhairava · Anonymous (Bhairava Āgama / Tantra)

Moderate

Mīmāṃsā-sūtra · Jaimini

Moderate