The colours of Kala
I was watching another of Jim Kwik’s videos on YouTube and this time he talked about how he divided his day into three parts - the mornings were for creating, afternoons for consuming and the evenings for clearing.
I thought, hmmm, what do our shrutis have to say about this?
So it may seem that I am still bound by my fascination with kala. Equally, I am keen to learn more about how color is expressed in our shrutis… My learning in this post reflects this transition from something ‘fixed’ to something ‘emergent’.
On that note, I continue to grow my notational panchang design as I grow my understanding of the five limbs of kala.
Today is represented here:
Notice the three colors - Grey, Red and Blue - more on this next.
For those of you reading my post for the first time, perhaps an explainer is necessary. Kala is measured in five parts.
At the core is the relationship between Surya and Chandra. Surya moves every 30 days from one solar month to another. When Surya and Chandra are together for the first time in a particular part of the sky, that marks the start of the corresponding lunar month. I like to begin my day by establishing the solar and lunar month respectively. Many people are taught that there are two different ‘calendar’ systems followed by Hindus - I disagree.
The Hindu calendar is witness to a celestial dance outside us and within us. Using a Hindu calendar helps us take right actions to align the outside with that which is within and vice versa. The dance is between Surya and Chandra; while within us it is between our Atma and our mind.
It occurs to me now that since this dance is essentially movement, that movement is obviously vAyu. So we have Surya, Chandra and Vayu.
This brings us to the colors red (vAra), silver (tithi) and blue (nakStra) - three parts of our panchAng - each further correlating to Surya - Vara - Red, Chandra - Tithi - Silver and Vayu - NakStra - Blue. Extend this triad further and we get:
Vata - Vayu - NakStra - Blue
Pitta - Surya - Vara - Red
Kapha - Chandra - Tithi - Grey
Vayu is one of the five pancha maha bhutas. So swapping out Surya and Chandra respectively for their primary pancha maha bhutas we get:
Vata - Vayu - NakStra - Blue
Pitta - Agni - Vara - Red
Kapha - Jala - Tithi - Grey
Bring all of this together, juxtaposed against one अहोरात्रं (ahorAtram, day & night), and we get:
The outer ring represent our day. The inner ring represents our night. For convenience sake, I am assuming a day and night that are equal in duration.
In this drawing, we see that each day and night is divided into three time zones that represent the qualities of VAta, Pitta and Kapha. If we boil all the respective qualities of each dosha to just one ‘umbrella’ term, we have these three qualities:
Kapha = visarga = releasing, sending forth, discharging, giving away
Pitta = AdAna = receiving, collecting, summing up, eating
VAta = VikshepaNa = spreading, disseminating, throwing away, scattering
What does even mean?
The easiest place to start is perhaps with Pitta and Agni. Like Surya, there is no ambiguity here. Receiving, collecting, summing up and eating can be summed up as a burning of experiences. During the day, for example, at noon, pitta and agni peak. This is when the body and mind are most open to receiving, collecting and summing up food. During the night, at midnight, when pitta and agni peak, an internal level of receiving, collecting and summing up is happening at the cellular level.
By considering what we want to digest / burn internally, we can set constraints on what we receive / collect externally.
Pitta and agni give way to vAta and vAyu. During the day this peaks around 4pm. This is when the body and mind are spreading, disseminating, throwing away and scattering to make space (akasa, the most subtle of the pancha maha bhutas). During the night, similarly between 2 - 6am, this process happens too. At 4am, we are encouraged to wake up and consciously witness the movement of gross to subtle through upasana.
At 6am, kapha and jala kick in. The easiest way for me to understand this is through the element - jala. Water is where all things are born. So inherent in this ‘discharge’ and ‘sending forth’ is an implied meaning of creating. We kick off our days by sending forth, discharging our karma, giving away in service.
If Pitta is burn up, Vata is spread out, then Kapha is serve up.