稳定与变迁

杜蒙写到古典的时间观念。这种「稳定性」如何在时间上体现出来。希望哪位科幻小说家可以用这个点子：
One must note briefly a strict implication of the system which is of the greatest importance. This is its relationship to time. Traditional society in general is seen as stable, it eliminates 'lived' time by means of the myth, which transfers 'lived' reality to the plane of the eternity of thought, and also by means of *rites de passage*, which regulate the flow of time into a series of stable states, like stretches of water connected by ritual lock-gates. The myths refer to the time of the origins of everything, which is properly the absence of time, and, compared with the atemporal model, nothing occurs in time except degeneration.

This property of traditional societies is at a maximum in this case, where it is extravagantly expressed: the four ages (*yuga*) mark the progressive degeneration of the world, and the present age, the *Kali* age, is separated by three successive transitions from the divine age. The notion of *kalivarjya* or 'prohibition in the Kali age' is used in the treatises to explain the discontinuance of customs recorded in the ancient texts, that is, the extent of the departure from the Veda. Thus for the traditional Hindu mentality, nothing changes so far as values are concerned. Perhaps everything changes, but only by departing from the models and hence losing significance.