kala in jainism

There is no hidden divine power in or beyond the universe which can regulate the change, and yet the change is not disorderly.  It is an order without a regulator; it is a law without a lawmaker.  Each object is itself the regulator of its own change.  Time is only a tool in the change.

Time repeats, and this is a natural law as well as a scientific arrangement.  As day and night, fortnight and month, season and year change, so do centuries, millennia, even an immensely large time, because of some natural laws.  In this eternal flow of time, there are up-phases and down-phases called Utsarpini and Avasarpini in the Jain terminology.   As the Utsarpiniphase waxes and expands, so the Avasarpini wanes and gradually recedes.  In the Utsarpini phase, the strength, longevity and body size gradually increase, as they gradually diminish in the Avasarpini phase.  Thus if Utsarpini stands for growth, Avasarpini stands for decline.  Each phase, Utsarpini and Avasarpini, has a length of a Koda-kodi Sagars (inconceivably long number of years), and twenty such Koda-kodi Sagars make one Kalpa.   There appear two-times 24 Tirthankars in each Kalpa.  Avasarpini has six divisions called:

1.  Sukhma-Sukhma,

2.  Sukhma;

3.  Sukhma-Duhkhma,

4.  Duhkhma-Sukhma,

5.  Duhkhma,

6.  Duhkhma-Duhkhma.  

(Sukhma stands for the bracing phase; Duhkhma stands for the non-bracing phase.) Likewise, Utsarpini has six divisions as follows:

 6.  

Duhkhma-Duhkhma,

 5.  

Duhkhma,

 4.  

Duhkhma-Sukhma,

 3.  

Sukhma-Duhkhma,

 2.  

Sukhma,

 1.  

Sukhma-Sukhma.

The names of these time divisions indicate the extent of pleasure and pain in each.   Here the word 'pleasure' is used in the worldly sense.   Up to the third time division in the first group, the dominant feature is pleasure, so that there is hardly any occasion for spiritual growth.  The Tirthankars appear in the fourth division and the road to liberation opens only then.  From this angle, the fourth division is very important.  Fourteen Kulakars appear at the end of the third division and 63 Shalaka-purushas (Spoke-men=Path-givers) in the fourth division who are as follows: 

Tirthankars 24, Chakravartis 12, Narayans 9, Prati-Narayans 9 and Balabhadras 9. 

The present time-phase is the fifth time-division of the Avasarpini.   In this phase, neither the Kulakars appear, nor the 63 Spoke-men.  Nor is any one liberated in this phase.  The 63 Spoke-men of the fourth division, particularly their character, is the subject matter of the Jain Puranas.  in this manner, an infinite number of Kalpas are buried in the past, and an infinite number will blossom in future.   Accordingly the group of the 24 Tirthankars one after another had been born an infinite number ot times in this land of Bharata, and similar groups will be born an infinite number of times in future.  A similar arrangement exists in the land of Airavat.   The state of things is somewhat different in Videha, because there it is always similar, to that in the fourth division. 

According to the Jain geography, of the innumerable isles and oceans in the central part of the universe, human beings exist only in the two isles and a half; and so the Tirthankars may appear in these two and a half isles.  The expanse in the first of these latter isles called Jambudvip is one lakh yojanas, containing seven regions, viz., Bharata, Haimavat, Hari, Videha, Ramyak; Hairanyavat and Airavat.  To know the details of these, one need have the deep knowledge and study of the Jain Agams.  It is superfluous to reproduce the description here. 

Although taking into consideration the current Avasarpini, it has been said that Mahavira was the twentyfourth and last Tirthankara of the land of Bharata.  Yet, taking a view of the aggregate, he can neither be given a definite nor be called last.  As it is said. 

kalo hyayam niravadhi vipula ca prthvi(Bhavbhuti, Malati-Madhava.) 

Time takes no limit, and the world is very big. 

In the first, second and third time-divisions, the arrangement is that of a land of pleasure (bhogbhumi), the order of pleasure being maximum, middle and minimum, but all the same the dominant note is pleasure.  Everyone is well-supplied with objects of pleasure through the medium of the Kalpa trees.  Thus though the life is full of joy, from a spiritual angle, the road to its full growth is, in a sense, closed.  The fourth division sees the emergence of a land of spiritual action (karmbhumi).  The easy realisation of pleasure gradually tends to cease and livelihood calls for more effort and pain, but the door of opportunity to spiritual growth widely opens.  At the end of the third division, the fourteen Kulakars train the common folks in the affairs of a land of spiritual appear and action The fourteenth Kulakar of the present Avasarpini:- was king Nabhiraya.  By the time of his appearance, when the third division had virtually closed, the land of pleasure was getting transformed into a land of spiritual action.