1 Śrīharṣa on the Indefinability of Time Jonathan Duquette1 and Krishnamurti Ramasubramanian2 In: Space, Time and the Limits of Understanding, eds. S. Wuppulari & G. Ghirardi. Springer, The Frontiers Collection. 2017. Abstract The conception of time as an absolute, eternal and imperishable entity is commonplace in several religious and philosophical systems. In the context of classical Indian philosophy, this position was advocated by the NyƗya school of logic and epistemology. This article presents an outline of the critique of the NyƗya concept of time put forward by ĝrīharṣa, a 12 th -century scholar in the Advaita VedƗnta school of philosophical theology. In his philosophical treatise, the KhaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhƗdya, ĝrīharṣa dismantles the NyƗya position based on a critical examination of its definition of causality and time-forms. The dismissal of the ontological reality of time is also discussed with reference to the works of two later Advaitins, namely Citsukha and Madhusūdana Sarasvatī. 1. Introduction Since Antiquity, thinkers of all civilizations, cultures and scholarly backgrounds have pondered on questions such as: What is time? How does it relate to the physical world? It is real or merely a human construct? Is it an object of knowledge, and if so, how do we apprehend it? What purpose does it serve in the scheme of reality? Various answers have been given to such questions in different areas of knowledge ranging from cosmology, physics and mathematics to philosophy, psychology and theology. The Indian tradition offers a wide spectrum of well-formulated views about time (kƗla3). Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jaina schools all endeavoured to understand the multifaceted nature of time in its metaphysical, logical and epistemological aspects, and for long debated with each other over such issues. In this article, we will focus on how one school of thought—the Advaita VedƗnta school of philosophical theology, whose views lean towards metaphysical idealism—refutes the concept of time advocated by another school, the NyƗya school of logic and epistemology, which defends a version of realistic pluralism. Our aim is to provide a first systematic outline of the incisive critique of the NyƗya concept of time put forward by the 12 th -century scholar of Advaita VedƗnta, ĝrīharṣa, in his celebrated treatise the KhaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhƗdya ("Edible Pieces of Refutation," hereafter KKK). We believe that an examination of ĝrīharṣa's critique is not only of historical and cultural interest, but also philosophically significant insofar as it stands as one of the most sophisticated attempts in the history of Indian philosophy to dismiss the ontological reality of time. In the scholarly tradition known as Advaita (non-dualist) VedƗnta, which flourished most richly after ĝaṅkara, a philosopher and theologian who lived in the 8 th century CE (?), 1 Newton International Fellow, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. E-mail: jonathan.duquette@orinst.ox.ac.uk. 2 Cell for Indian Science and Technology in Sanskrit, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India. E-mail: ram@hss.iitb.ac.in. 3 All technical terms used in this article are in Sanskrit.