Time shows up in Dravyasamgraha as one of the six fundamental substances, standing shoulder to shoulder with soul, matter, space, motion and rest. It isn’t some abstract backdrop, but an eternal, all-pervading dravya whose very existence makes change—birth, growth, decay—possible. Like the strokes on a canvas that let a painting unfold, kala provides the framework within which every transformation takes place.

First off, time is classified into two types. One is the infinite time (ananta-kāla), stretching beyond any beginning or end—think of it as the cosmic clock with no zero hour. The other is limited time (antara-kāla), those slices we measure on our wall calendars, governed by the sequence of moments. In modern life, this mirrors the split between universal time standards (like UTC, which sometimes throws in a leap second to “catch up” with Earth’s wobble) and personal schedules.

Although indivisible and non-atomic—meaning it can’t be chopped up like matter—time still proceeds in a definite order of past, present and future. It’s the silent partner in every event: without kala, even the tiniest particle of pudgala couldn’t shift its place, nor could jīva experience any progress on its spiritual journey. In that sense, time isn’t just a measurement tool; it’s the very enabler of evolution—cosmic and moral.

Interestingly, Dravyasamgraha’s take on time resonates with today’s debates on time dilation in space travel. When astronauts orbit Earth, they “beat the clock” by aging slightly slower, thanks to Einstein, yet in Jain thought, kala remains uniformly consistent and independent of worldly speed. No relativistic loopholes here—time simply is, steady as the sun’s rise, guiding every moment toward its destined change.