Concepts of Space, Time, and Consciousness in Ancient India

Abstract

This paper describes Indian ideas of the early-Purana/Mahabharata times (centuries BC) on the nature of space, time and consciousness that would be of interest to the physicist. In order to simplify references, we quote mainly from Yoga-Vasistha (YV), which is representative of that period of Indian thought. YV professes to be a book of instruction on the nature of consciousness but it has many fascinating passages on time, space, matter and cognition. This paper presents a random selection that has parallels with recent speculations in physics. It also presents a brief account of the context in which ideas of YV developed.

arXiv comment14 pages; with minor corrections and a few additional references

References in corpus (1)

• Early Theories on the Distance to the Sun

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Indian Physics: Outline of Early History
• Aristotle and Gautama on Logic and Physics
• The Cyclic Universe: Some Historical Notes
• Indian Cosmological Ideas
• The Theory Of Matter in Indian Physics
• Are Aryabhata's and Galilean Relativity Equivalent?
• Time Cycles in Indian Cosmology
• Space and Time as Containers of the "Physical Material World" with some Conceptual and Epistemological Consequences in Modern Physics