How do the religious traditions of South Asia conceptualize time? How do these notions of time shape their social institutions and cultural practices? The manuscripts and publications here on display were selected with these questions in mind. Each text from the various manuscripts of South and Southeast Asia on display in the exhibit reflects a particular facet of time: the measurement of time, the experience of time, the understanding of time, the interpretation of time, the use of time, the control of time, even timelessness itself.

For experienced time there is the need to measure it and a system for its measurement. The most obvious means of measuring time, or of simply noting the passing of time is the charting of the cosmos: the daily passage of the sun, the phases of the moon, the apparent movements of the planets and stars through the heavens. The Indian scientific tradition developed to maintain its calendric system was called jyotisha, a word that means 'relating to light'. The jyotisha manuscripts in the exhibit represent a sampling of a vibrant and active scientific tradition. But the term does not translate easily into English because jyotishashastra, 'the science of jyotisha' encompasses astronomy, astrology, mathematics, and divination. Traditionally it is divided into three skandhas,'branches', samhita, 'omens', ganita, 'astronomy' and hora, 'astrology'.