परमार्थसार (महामाहेश्वर अभिनवगुप्त - त्रिक-दर्शन, अद्वैत शैव साधना एवं सान्वय सटीक)

Paramārthasāra of Abhinavagupta 31 chains of ignorance and finitude, is known as a paśu, a bonded being. Carrying further the phenomenal evolution, Lord Anantanātha shakes up Māyā-tattva and expands it into five kañcukas or sheaths that cover and hide the divine nature of the ātman and present it in the form of a bonded being called paśu. Depriving it of its omnipotence and limiting its powers to do, it appears in it as kalā, a limited capacity to do just a little. Contracting the omniscience of the ātman, it appears there as the impure Vidyā, a finite capacity to know just a little. Limiting further scope of the kalā and Vidyā of the ātman, Māyā appears as niyati, the law of phenomenal causation, and restricts the kalā, Vidyā and rāga of the finite being at each and every step. Contracting the very person of such a being, Māyā appears as kāla, the sense of time, on account of which he does neither do nor know anything without conditioning these activities by the sense of time appearing as past or present or future. Such sense of time becomes so deeply impressed on his person that he does not even think of his very existence except within the terms of past, present or future. Time, according to Śaivism, is an imagined sense of succession with regard to events and actions. Such sense of time is based on the imagination of the finite being living at the plane of Māyā, Such successions are either regular as those of the apparent move- ments of sun and moon, change of seasons, blossoming of flowers, ripening of fruits and grains and so on: or these are irregular as those of the routine actions of individual beings. We very often measure all the irregular series of successions with some regular successions mentioned above and say that such and such person lived a life of one hundred years; such and such book was read by me in one month; today you slept for eight hours, and so on. Time in Śaivism is thus a mere conception and not any substance. It is a special type of relativity which is itself a substanceless con- ception based on human imagination. The finite I-consciousness, shrouded by Māyā and these five tattvas of limitation, is termed as puruṣa, a bonded finite being known as paśu or aṇu or jīva and so on. अधुनैव किञ्चिदेवेदमेव सर्वात्मनैव जानामि । मायासहितं कञ्चुकषट्कमणोरन्तरङ्गमिदमुक्तम् ॥ १७ ॥