a cosmopolitan variety of sources, the perennial philosophy concludes that things are false in the sense that an imitation, though it exists, is not the real thing; the philosophy distinguishes between the relative reality of the artifact and the greater reality. The particular is real but not as real as the universal ideal toward which it aspires. There are then degrees of reality, just as there are degrees of quality. A central principle of the perennial philosophy is the qualitative principle that the ideal is more real than that which temporally imitates the ideal.

In the first chapter, Coomaraswamy examines the Hindu understanding of time and eternity. That tradition holds that time is the source of past and present, uniting procession, recession, and stasis and, therefore, reality. According to the Katha Upanishad, Brahma is the “Lord of what hath been and shall be; He is both today and tomorrow.” Brahma has both a time and timeless form. The timeless form of Brahma is the creator of time, of the moments, hours, days, and years that have separate existences. A moment is the ultimate minimum of time, and the uninterrupted flow of moments is called time. The cumulative result of all those moments of time makes up the world. By using those moments, people can be, or fail to be, all that they ought to be. The proper use of those moments of time is in seeking the timeless eternity; that timeless eternity is the ultimate reality, known as Brahma. In so doing, people can escape both time and death.

In the third chapter, Coomaraswamy examines the Buddhist understanding of time and eternity. Buddhism’s essential observation on the subject is that change is constant in the world and that all change is dying. Ultimately, then, beings and the self are both unreal because they are not stable. Time is past, future, or present: In the past thought-moment one lived; in the future thought-moment one will live; and in the present thought-moment one is alive. The association of the world, time, and death is axiomatic to Buddhist philosophy, but reality is not limited to those conditions.

In the spirit of the perennial philosophy, Coomaraswamy cites philosophers Aristotle, Heraclitus of Ephesus, and even Saint Augustine to support a Buddhist point. All agree that it is only the realm of time and sense that continues subject to destruction and generation. However, there is a realm of stability and constancy that is neither empirical nor temporal. In the Buddhist view, time is a continuum and the immanent moment in time is not a part of time. It is in the realm of the immanent moment where stability is found and death and suffering can be escaped. Those who realize this experience an awakening. This timeless or instantaneous awakening occurs when the individual achieves a mystic union with the eternal that is not part of time.

The Greek tradition is introduced by reference to Parmenides, who argues that in contrast to things that are momentary and in decay, there exists a realm of that which is complete, immoveable, and endless. For Plato, the world was made by Zeus according to the same stable eternity. Time and the universe are generated together according to the paradigm of the everlasting nature. Time and the universe are therefore temporal imitations of an eternal ideal, an eternal ideal that is ultimately most real. The distinction of things being less or more real, or as they are rather than as they ought to be, is clarified in Plato’s Philbos (c. 360-347 b.c.e.; Philebus, 1804). In this work, Plato explains that there is one authentic self and another, which is ever pursuing something other than itself. It is the authentic self that is most real and that exists out of the realm of time. As Aristotle puts it, the most real self exists in the eternity that is not in time. The Greek view of time and eternity is concluded by reference to Plutarch and Plotinus. Plutarch reflects that what is ultimately real is eternal, unborn, and unperishing—unaffected by time. For Plutarch, this serves as a definition of God. Plotinus also identifies life as an imitation of eternity and identifies eternity with God who reconciles time with now.

A variety of understandings of time and eternity exist within Islam. One Islamic view, the Ash’arite, holds that time is made up of “nows,”or present moments, each of which is continuously created by Allah. Accordingly, only Allah holds together the whole stream of the existence of the world. Therefore, the conception of causality in the universe is limited to the workings of Allah. This understanding of time is associated with an atomistic view of creation. The world is made of atoms that have no quantity, but out of which compounds can be made that possess quantity. Time and space appear to be continuous but in fact consist of a series of atomistic moments, whose source is Allah, who is the only ultimate reality.

Coomaraswamy briefly discusses possible Buddhist and Vedic origins for this Muslim atomism. Consistent with the perennial philosophy to which he is devoted, however, he notes that the important question is not one of historical origin but rather of ontology. From the viewpoint of ontology, Coomaraswamy finds fault with this particular vision of time, space, and eternity, concluding that the Sufi understanding of time as an indivisible instant is more coherent. He notes that the Sufi Islamic (and Christian) doctrines of time and eternity could have been derived from Platonic-Aristotelian sources. The Sufi hold that phenomena are perpetually changing and being created anew, while God remains as he is. Coomaraswamy summarizes the Sufi vision of time as being an imitation of eternity, much as becoming is of being and as thinking is of knowing. Now devours future and past; Time (now) is the devourer of time. Time is that whereby a person becomes independent of past and future; those who possess it are happy with God in the present. Indeed, being thus situated between the past and the future is the most precious of human things. The Sufi concept of the momentary existence of accidents does not exclude causality, butthe operation of this causality is deemed mysterious.

The Christian and modern doctrines of time and eternity share an essential idea with the previously discussed traditions. That idea is that corruptibility is inseparable from any existence in time, and that there is only one escape from that corruption: passing over from the flux of temporal existence to a present eternity in which there is neither a yesterday nor a tomorrow. The reality of the eternal present is found in the Holy Ghost, whose actions are immediate. They are immediate because the instant, in which God dwells, terminates time—and space as well. Time and space are continuous, not atomistic; indeed, Augustine notes that God “is” where “has been” and “will be” cannot be. Because God “is,” then the problem of free will is resolved. Because God views as present what appears to people as the future, there can be no predestination that precludes free will. Further, Boethius compares time to the circumference of a circle of which the center is eternity; the closer one is to the center, the less one is subject to the necessity of fate, since fate is grounded in time, space, and motion. Thus, philosopher Meister Eckhart speaks of the world as a circle centered on God. The center of that circle is where time (the past and present) are transcended by Time (the eternal now). It is in the unified experience of the eternal now that the processes of creation and destruction are transcended.

Time and Eternity is widely recognized as a work of erudite and cosmopolitan scholarship. The question of its importance as a philosophical work elicits radically different responses. For those who believe that reality is purposeful, Time and Eternity presents a cosmopolitan and penetrating ontological analysis. For those who embrace the empirical and Kantian foundations of modernity, Coomaraswamy’s critique of modernity is unconvincing and even reactionary. Similarly, as he states in his last chapter, those who elect to live in a merely existential world without meaning will benefit neither from his scholarship nor from the perennial philosophy to which he is devoted. As Coomaraswamy concludes, those are the people who fail to see the world in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour.