Thus the Kārikā says:
“triguṇamaviveki vishayaḥ sāmānyamacetanaṃ prasavadharmi
vyaktaṃ tathā pradhānaṃ tadviparītastathā pumān.”
The manifested and the unmanifested pradhāna or prakṛti are both composed of the three guṇas, non-intelligent, objective, universal, unconscious and productive. Soul in these respects is the reverse. We have seen above that prakṛti is the state of equilibrium of the guṇas, which can in no way be of any use to the purushas, and is thus held to be eternal, though all other states are held to be non-eternal as they are produced for the sake of the purushas.
The state of prakṛti is that in which the guṇas completely overpower each other and the characteristics (dharma) and the characterised (dharmī) are one and the same.
Evolution is thus nothing but the manifestation of change, mutation, by the energy of rajas. The rajas is the one mediating activity that breaks up all compounds, builds up new ones and initiates original modifications. Whenever in any particular combination the proportion of sattva, rajas or tamas alters, as a condition of this alteration, there is the dominating activity of rajas by which the old equilibrium is destroyed and another equilibrium established; this in its turn is again disturbed and again another equilibrium is restored. Now the manifestation of this latent activity of rajas is what is called change or evolution. In the external world the time that is taken by a paramāṇu or atom to move from its place is identical with a unit of change.[[23]] Now an atom will be that quantum which is smaller or finer than that point or limit at which it can in any way be perceived by the senses. Atoms are therefore mere points without magnitude or dimension, and the unit of time or moment (kshaṇa) that is taken up in changing the position of these atoms is identical with one unit of change or evolution. The change or evolution in the external world must therefore be measured by these units of spatial motion of the atoms; i.e. an atom changing its own unit of space is the measure of all physical change or evolution.
Each unit of time (kshaṇa) corresponding to this change of an atom of its own unit of space is the unit-measure of change. This instantaneous succession of time as discrete moments one following the other is the notion of the series of moments or pure and simple succession. Now the notion of these discrete moments is the notion of time. Even the notion of succession is one that does not really exist but is imagined, for a moment comes into being just when the moment just before had passed so that they have never taken place together. Thus Vyāsa in III. 52, says: “kshaṇatatkramayornāsti vastusamāhāraḥ iti buddhisamāhāraḥ muhūrttāhorātrātrādayaḥ.” Sa tvayaṃ kālaḥ vastuśūnyo’pi buddhinirmāṇaḥ. The moments and their succession do not belong to the category of actual things; the hour, the day and night, are all aggregates of mental conceptions. This time which is not a substantive reality in itself, but is only a mental concept, represented to us through linguistic usage, appears to ordinary minds as if it were an objective reality.
So the conception of time as discrete moments is the real one, whereas the conception of time as successive or as continuous is unreal, being only due to the imagination of our empirical and relative consciousness. Thus Vācaspati further explains it. A moment is real (vastupatitaḥ) and is the essential element of the notion of succession. Succession involves the notion of change of moments, and the moment is called time by those sages who know what time is. Two moments cannot happen together. There cannot be any succession of two simultaneous things. Succession means the notion of change involving a preceding and a succeeding moment. Thus there is only the present moment and there are no preceding and later moments. Therefore there cannot be any union of these moments. The past and the future moments may be said to exist only if we speak of past and future as identical with the changes that have become latent and others that exist potentially but are not manifested. Thus in one moment, the whole world suffers changes. All these characteristics are associated with the thing as connected with one particular moment.[[24]]
So we find here that time is essentially discrete, being only the moments of our cognitive life. As two moments never co-exist, there is no succession or continuous time. They exist therefore only in our empirical consciousness which cannot take the real moments in their discrete nature but connects the one with the other and thereby imagines either succession or continuous time.
Now we have said before, that each unit of change or evolution is measured by this unit of time kshaṇa or moment; or rather the units of change are expressed in terms of these moments or kshaṇas. Of course in our ordinary consciousness these moments of change cannot be grasped, but they can be reasonably inferred. For at the end of a certain period we observe a change in a thing; now this change, though it becomes appreciable to us after a long while, was still going on every moment, so, in this way, the succession of evolution or change cannot be distinguished from the moments coming one after another. Thus the Yoga-sūtra says in IV. 33: “Succession involving a course of changes is associated with the moments.” Succession as change of moments is grasped only by a course of changes. A cloth which has not passed through a course of changes through a series of moments cannot be found old all at once at any time. Even a new cloth kept with good care becomes old after a time. This is what is called the termination of a course of changes and by it the succession of a course of changes can be grasped. Even before a thing is old there can be inferred a sequence of the subtlest, subtler, subtle, grossest, grosser and gross changes (Tattvavaiśāradī, IV. 33).[[25]]