Madhyamaka and Advaita Vedānta on the Ontology of Time

The analysis contrasts how two Indian philosophical traditions—Mahāyāna Buddhism’s Madhyamaka school and the Brāhmaṇic school of Advaita Vedānta—understand time. In Madhyamaka, time is a mental construction produced by consciousness clouded by afflictions (kleśa); it has no reality outside the mind, and true reality is timeless and free from distinctions like past, present, and future. In Advaita Vedānta, time has a positive but relative ontological status: it is part of māyā, the creative power of Brahman, and exists both in individual consciousness and outside it. The empirical world, including time, is not perfectly real but is not perfectly unreal either, as it conceals the truly real Brahman. Overcoming ignorance means penetrating through the changing temporal world to reach Brahman.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Fundamental difference between Buddhist Mahāyāna school of Madhyamaka and Brāhmaṇic school of Advaita Vedānta in interpretation of ontology of time is analyzed on the basis of Nāgārjuna’s (2–3rd cc.) treatise Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā, Candrakīrti’s (7th c.) commentary Prasannapadā, Vasubandhu’s (4th c.) treatise Abhidharmakośa, Asaṅga’s (4th c.) Abhidharma-samuccaya, Śaṃkara’s (9th c.) commentary to Bādarāyaṇa’s (2nd c.) Brahma- sūtras and Sadānanda’s (15th c.) Vedāntasāra. Time according to Madhyamaka is the result of the activ­ity of consciousness blinded by afflictions (kleśa), and therefore it is just mental construction having no referent in reality. There is no time in true reality, for time presupposes the difference between past, present and future. But, according to Mahāyāna, any difference is engendered by afflictions and the true reality is free from them. Differences, including the difference between past, present and future, exist only in a saṃsāric consciousness. In other words, time for Mahāyāna is nothing more than an epistemological phenomenon. Time in Ad­vaita Vedānta has a positive ontological status. The only true reality is Brahman, and the empirical world is subject to changes and therefore cannot be considered as perfectly real. But if it were perfectly unreal it could not conceal Brahman and manifest itself in individual consciousness as ignorance. Therefore time as one of its aspects is only relatively real and exists not only in individual conscious­ness but also outside of it as a part of māyā, the creative power of Brahman. The overcoming of ignorance is the penetration to truly real Brahman through changing and temporary world that conceals it.