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 Is Time linear or cyclic?
Time is just something that we assign. You know, past, present, it’s just all arbitrary. Most Native Americans, they don’t think of time as linear; in time, out of time, I never have enough time, circular time, the Stevens wheel. All moments are happening all the time.
Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure, Hello, I Love You, 1994
 Back in my college days I had a friend by the name Hiranya Rao (an ominous name). When the examinations were over at the end of my freshman year at college, we all got some palm-sized multi-coloured notepads (called ‘autograph’ books in those days), and went around the campus seeking autographs from our friends and teachers. It was a fad then. My friend wrote an aphorism in Thamizh in one of the pages thus:
“ulagam uruNDai enbadhu uNmaiyAnAl nAm iruvarum mINDum sandhippadhu
uRudhi” (-if it is true that the world is round we will definitely meet
again). Coming from a person with a mythological name I was awed by that terse statement he wrote.
Over the past three decades I used to ruminate on that statement off and on. I was always on the lookout for Hiranya Rao wherever I went. No luck, so far! The possibility of running into him is there while the probability is very low. But I am not sure about that either. Perhaps we ran across each other years ago or even yesterday in the public library without recognising each other. Did Time make that rendezvous elusive because Time is linear and moves inexorably into the future without any chance to reverse itself? If so, random movements by any two individuals will further complicate and foil a happenstance or rendezvous. On the other hand can Time make the rendezvous possible if it is cyclic? Let us examine this a little further.
According to theories proffered in early Indian civilisation period, time was considered cyclic involving endless repetition of events without beginning or end. It is like the imagery portrayed by a serpent eating its own tail. Within that macroscopic cyclic time there were microscopic periods such as the 24-hour circadian cycle in biological species and night/day in the physical world. Then there are the alternating fortnights of waxing and waning moon (Sukla paksham and Krishna paksham). Time was classified as consisting of 4 eras (Yugaas) named as Satya (or Krita) Yuga, TrEtA Yuga, DwApara Yuga, and Kali Yuga. The current age is called the Kali Yuga and at the end of this era it is supposed to go back all over to the beginning Krita Yuga and continue the cycle again. The descending cycle is characterised by deterioration of dharma, and decrease in longevity of human life. The Kali Yuga is also replete with violence, falsehood, and wickedness as wealth becomes the dominant factor in people’s lives in this age.
Time was also conceived as cyclic in ancient Greece. Hesoid, a Greek historian from the 8th century BCE, described five eras beginning with the golden age in a remote past when human beings lived in peace with each other and in harmony with nature leading on to the current time called iron age marked by dispute and warfare. This is not unlike the Indian mythological description of life in the four Yugas. Pythagoras (6th century BCE) depicted the end of the cycle when the sun, moon, and all other planets would return to their original positions. Exactly the same people would return to earth and all that happened before would repeat again all over. A sense of déjà vu!
In contrast to such ancient description of time as being cyclic, medieval and modern history presents time as not circular but linear, proceeding unidirectionally and irreversibly with a definite beginning (creation of the universe) and a unique end (which is still being debated as to when it will be) conforming to material in Judeo-Christian religious texts. The end is sometimes described as the day of Last Judgment or the denouement dance of Lord Shiva (known as
oozhik kooththu in Thamizh).
 Modern philosophers, including Darwin, secularised time. Time is conceived of as an endless process causing random events and devoid of any connection with the planets and seasons of the year. In general, time, according to them, presages progress in the long run with occasional short-term setbacks. However, the cyclic eras, (being so long) could accommodate extended linear segments and thus the two theories may not be in conflict at all. The cyclic time subsumes linear time within its fold.
It thus brings us back to my puzzle whether I would still meet Hiranya Rao again. While the physical reality of time, as we know it now, precludes the visualisation of time as cyclic, it is not quite inconceivable as it appears and I still hope to meet Hiranya Rao. The Thamizh calendar runs in 60-year cycles and with a little help from a phenomenon called ‘Time Warp’ perhaps the cycle could be accelerated and the events of the past can be made to repeat sooner and therein lies my hope to meet Hiranya Rao again. If somebody finds him, please tell him that I am looking for him! Perhaps if he surfs the Net he may contact me too. I do not underestimate the power of the Internet to turn the course of Time from linear to an accelerated cyclic mode.
Sethuraman Subramanian
subramaniansethu@hotmail.com
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