The Conception of Time in William Buck's Mahabharata
In Hindu philosophy, there is no absolute beginning to the universe and no absolute ending. Therefore, time is not conceived of in a linear fashion as is common in western philosophy. Instead, time is seen as a wheel turning within a larger wheel, and moksha, or the release from this wheel is one of the goals of of the Hindu devotee. In William Buck's Mahabharata, time is viewed by the characters as an enemy of sorts, a personified entity which causes loss. It is the intent of this paper to show how Buck presents a cohesive treatment of the concept of time in has retelling of the Mahabharata story. I would like to explore seven elements of his story and try to explain how they are connected into a meaningful whole.
In order to set the stage, if you will, for Buck's treatment of time, I would like to start by briefly going over how time is a part of the Hindu religion. Time in Hinduism is generally conceived of as a wheel rotating through cycles of sarga (creation) and pralaya (destruction) called kappa cycles. Each kappa cycle is a life of Brahma which lasts 100 Brahmic years or 311,040,000,000,000 human years. At the beginning of each kappa the world is created as Brahma is born and at the end of each the world is destroyed as he dies. Between each kappa, a period of 100 Brahmic years passes before Brahma is born again and the next kappa cycle begins. A further aspect of the kappa cycles is that they are made up of 1000 great aeons which are themselves made up of four yugas (ages). These four ages are Saga Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga which is the present age. Buck uses none of these terms in his work, yet it is clear ...
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...s paper is show the cohesion of Buck's treatment of time, which becomes most evident by viewing multiple examples side by side. This is by no means an exhaustive analysis of time in Hindu philosophy, but by considering Buck's text in the context of that philosophy as I have, it becomes clear that it is possible to make that vast amount of knowledge accessible to an audience who may expect little more than a romantic history.
Source Cited:
Buck, William. Mahabharata. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
Sources Consulted:
1) Organ, Troy W. AThe Hindu Motif.@ Hinduism: Its Historical Development. Woodbury: Barron=s Educational Series,
2) Waterstone, Richard. AIndia: Concepts of Time.@ WWW page. URL http://pathfinder.com/@@xxAIUQcASaX4vvex/twep/Little_Brown/living/india/india_time1.html. 7 January 1997.
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