Abstract

In a Vedic hymn, Reality or Being is proclaimed as having “arisen from Nothing”. By contrast, in Jaina cosmology time has no beginning; the universe, uncreated, has always existed.In Plato’s Timaeus the universe is conceived as not having existed eternally, but as having been created at some past time by a demiurge acting on pre-existing substance. We are all familiar with the arresting first line of Genesis.