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Samayā
Sanskrit term for time From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Samaya (Sanskrit: समय, romanized: Samayā, lit. 'Time')[1] or Samayam (Sanskrit: समयम्, romanized: Samayaṃ)[2] is a Sanskrit term referring to the "appointed or proper time, [the] right moment for doing anything."[3] In Indian languages, samayam, or samay in Indo-Aryan languages, is a unit of time.
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Meaning
In contemporary usage, samayam means time in Dravidian languages such as Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil,[4] and samay in Indo-Aryan languages such as Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati.
Jainism
Meaning
Samaya represents the most infinitesimal part of time that cannot be divided further.[5] The blink of an eye, or about a quarter of a second, has innumerable samaya in it. For all practical purposes a second happens to be the finest measurement of time. Jainism, however, recognizes a very small measurement of time known as samaya, which is an infinitely small part of a second.
Measurements
The following are measures of time as adopted by Jainism:
- indivisible time = 1 samaya
- innumerable samaya = 1 avalika
- 16,777,216 avalika = 1 muhurta
- 30 muhurtas = 1 day and night
- 15 days and nights = 1 paksha (fortnight)
- 2 pakshas = 1 month
- 12 months = 1 year
- innumerable years = 1 palyopam
- 10 million million palyopams = 1 sāgaropam
- 10 million million sāgaropams = l utsarpiṇī or 1 avasarpiṇī
- 1 utsarpiṇī + avasarpiṇī = 1 kālchakra (one time cycle)
Example
When an Arihant reaches the stage of moksha (liberation), the soul travels to the Siddhashila (highest realm in universe) in one samaya.
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Hinduism
Samayam is the basic unit of time in Hindu mythology. It is stated to be an epithet of Shiva in the Agni Purana.[6]
Other uses
The samayachakra is the great chariot wheel of time which turns relentlessly forward.
Samayam is a term used in Indian classical music to loosely categorize ragas into times of day. Each raga has a specific period of the day (praharam) when it is performed.
In Gandharva-Veda the day is divided into three-hour-long intervals: 4–7 a.m., 7–10 a.m., etc. The time concept in Gandharva-Veda is more strictly adhered to than it would be, for example, in Carnatic music.
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See also
References
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