Samayā

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.

For other uses, see Samaya (disambiguation).
The Ashoka Chakra has a spoke for each of 24 hours in a day.

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.

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.

See also

References
  1. www.wisdomlib.org (2014-08-03). "Samaya, Samayā, Samāya, Shamaya: 30 definitions". www.wisdomlib.org. Retrieved 2023-01-05.
  2. Bodhi (2017-09-26). The Suttanipata: An Ancient Collection of the Buddha's Discourses Together with Its Commentaries. Simon and Schuster. p. 1531. ISBN 978-1-61429-454-2.
  3. Monier-Williams, Sir Monier; Leumann, Ernst; Cappeller, Carl (1999). A Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymological and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. Asian Educational Services. p. 1164. ISBN 978-81-206-0369-1.
  4. Andronov, Mikhail Sergeevich (2003). A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 258. ISBN 978-3-447-04455-4.
  5. Jain, Vijay K. (2018). Ācārya Kundakunda's Pravacanasāra – Essence of the Doctrine आचार्य कुन्दकुन्द विरचित "प्रवचनसार". Vikalp Printers. p. 180. ISBN 978-81-932726-1-9.
  6. Books, Kausiki (2021-07-12). Agni Purana 1 : English Translation only. Kausiki Books. p. 460.
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