Yuga Cycle

A Yuga Cycle ( chatur yuga, maha yuga, etc.) is a cyclic age (epoch) in Hindu cosmology. Each cycle lasts for 4,320,000 years (12,000 divine years) and repeats four "yugas" (world ages): "Krita (Satya) Yuga", "Treta Yuga", "Dvapara Yuga", and "Kali Yuga".
As a "Yuga Cycle" progresses through the four "yugas", each "yuga's" length and humanity's general moral and physical state within each "yuga" decrease by one-fourth. "Kali Yuga", which lasts for 432,000 years, is believed to have started in 3102 BCE. Near the end of "Kali Yuga", when virtues are at their worst, a cataclysm and a re-establishment of "dharma" occur to usher in the next cycle's "Satya Yuga", prophesied to occur by Kalki.
There are 71 "Yuga Cycles" in a "manvantara" (age of Manu) and 1,000 "Yuga Cycles" in a "kalpa" (day of Brahma).
Lexicology.
A Yuga Cycle has several names.
Age or Yuga ():
Chatur Yuga ():
Daiva Yuga (),<br>
Deva Yuga (),<br>
Divya Yuga ():
Maha Yuga ():
Yuga Cycle () + ():
It is theorized that the concept of the four "yugas" originated some time after the compilation of the four Vedas, but prior to the rest of the Hindu texts, based on the concept's absence in the former writings. It is believed that the four "yugas"⁠—"Krita" ("Satya"), "Treta", "Dvapara", and "Kali"⁠—are named after throws of an Indian game of long dice, marked with 4-3-2-1 respectively. A dice game is described in the "Rigveda", "Atharvaveda", Upanishads, "Ramayana", "Mahabharata", and Puranas, while the four "yugas" are described after the four Vedas with no mention of a correlation to dice. A complete description of the four "yugas" and their characteristics are in the "Vishnu Smriti" (ch. 20), "Mahabharata" (e.g. Vanaparva 149, 183), "Manusmriti" (I.81–86), and Puranas (e.g. "Brahma", ch. 122–123; "Matsya", ch. 142–143; "Naradiya", Purvardha, ch. 41). The four "yugas" are also described in the "Bhagavata Purana" (3.11.18–20).
Duration and structure.
Hindu texts describe four "yugas" (world ages)⁠ in a "Yuga Cycle"—"Krita (Satya) Yuga", "Treta Yuga", "Dvapara Yuga", and "Kali Yuga"—where, starting in order from the first age, each "yuga's" length decreases by one-fourth (25%), giving proportions of 4:3:2:1. Each "yuga" is described as having a main period ( "yuga" proper) preceded by its (dawn) and followed by its (dusk)⁠, where each twilight (dawn/dusk) lasts for one-tenth (10%) of its main period. Lengths are given in divine years (years of the gods), each lasting for 360 solar (human) years.
Each "Yuga Cycle" lasts for 4,320,000 years (12,000 divine years) with its four "yugas" and their parts occurring in the following order:
The current cycle's four "yugas" have the following dates based on Kali Yuga, the fourth and present age, starting in 3102 BCE:
Characteristics.
The Hindu texts describe that along with each "yuga's" one-fourth (25%) decrease in length, so too does humanity's general moral and physical state decrease at the same rate. "Dharma" is personified as a bull, whose four legs reduce by one with each new "yuga", often related to Mother Earth personified as a cow. Near the end of "Kali Yuga", when virtues are at their worst, a cataclysm and a re-establishment of "dharma" occur to usher in the next cycle's "Satya Yuga", prophesied to occur by Kalki.
The descending "yugas" see a gradual decline of "dharma", wisdom, knowledge, intellectual capability, lifespan, emotional and physical strength.
Greater cycles.
There are 71 "Yuga Cycles" (306,720,000 years) in a "manvantara", a period ruled by Manu, who is the progenitor of mankind. There are 1,000 "Yuga Cycles" (4,320,000,000 years) in a "kalpa", a period that is a day (12-hour day proper) of Brahma, who is the creator of the planets and first living entities. There are 14 "manvantaras" (4,294,080,000 years) in a "kalpa" with a remainder of 25,920,000 years assigned to 15 "manvantara-sandhyas" (junctures), each the length of a "Satya Yuga" (1,728,000 years). A "kalpa" is followed by a "pralaya" (night or partial dissolution) of equal length forming a full day (24-hour day). A "maha-kalpa" (life of Brahma) lasts for 100 360-day years of Brahma, which lasts for 72,000,000 "Yuga Cycles" (311.04 trillion years) and is followed by a "maha-pralaya" (full dissolution) of equal length.
We are currently halfway through Brahma's life ("maha-kalpa"):
"Yuga" dates are used in an "ashloka", which is read out at the beginning of Hindu rites to specify the elapsed time in Brahma's life:
Avatars.
Ganesha.
Ganesha avatars are described as coming during specific "yugas".
Vishnu.
The Puranas describe Vishnu avatars that come during specific "yugas", but may not occur in every "Yuga Cycle".
Vamana appears at the beginning of "Treta Yuga". According to "Vayu Purana", Vamana's 3rd appearance was in the 7th "Treta Yuga".
Rama appears at the end of "Treta Yuga". According to "Vayu Purana" and "Matsya Purana", Rama appeared in the 24th "Yuga Cycle". According to "Padma Purana", Rama also appeared in the 27th "Yuga Cycle" of the 6th "manvantara".
Vyasa.
Vyasa is attributed as the compiler of the four Vedas, "Mahabharata", and Puranas. According to the "Vishnu Purana", "Kurma Purana", and "Shiva Purana", a different Vyasa comes at the end of each "Dvapara Yuga" to write down "veda" (knowledge) for the degraded age of "Kali Yuga".
Modern theories.
Breaking from the long duration of a "Yuga Cycle", new theories have emerged regarding the length, number, and order of the "yugas".
Sri Yukteswar Giri.
Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri (1855 – 1936) proposed a "Yuga Cycle" of 24,000 years in the introduction of his book "The Holy Science" (1894).
He claimed the understanding that "Kali Yuga" lasts for 432,000 years was a mistake, which he traced back to Raja Parikshit, just after the descending "Dvapara Yuga" ended ( 3101BCE) and all the wise men of his court retired to the Himalaya Mountains. With no one left to correctly calculate the ages, "Kali Yuga" never officially started. After 499CE, in ascending "Dvapara Yuga", when the intellect of men began to develop, but not fully, they noticed mistakes and attempted to correct them by converting what they thought to be divine years to human years (1:360 ratio). Yukteswar's "yuga" lengths for "Satya", "Treta", "Dvapara", and "Kali" are respectively 4,800, 3,600, 2,400, and 1,200 "human" years (12,000 years total).
He accepted the four "yugas" and their 4:3:2:1 length and "dharma" proportions, but his "Yuga Cycle" contained eight "yugas", the original descending set of the four "yugas" followed by an ascending (reversed) set, where he called each set a "Daiva Yuga" or "Electric Couple". His "Yuga Cycle" lasts for 24,000 years, which he believed equals one precession of the equinoxes (traditionally 25,920 years; 1,920 years ignored). He states that the world entered the Pisces-Virgo Age in 499CE ("cycle bottom"), and that the current age of ascending "Dvapara Yuga" started in 1699CE around the time of scientific discoveries and advancements such as electricity.
He explained that in a 24,000-year "Yuga Cycle", our Sun completes one orbit around some dual star, becoming nearer and farther to a galactic center, which the pair orbit in a longer period. He called this galactic center "Vishnunabhi" (Vishnu's Navel), where Brahma regulates "dharma" or, as Yukteswar defined it, mental virtue. "Dharma" is lowest when farthest from Brahma at the descending-ascending intersection ("cycle-bottom"), where the opposite occurs at the "cycle-top" when nearest. At "dharma's" lowest (499CE), human intellect cannot comprehend anything beyond the gross material world.
Joscelyn Godwin states that Yukteswar believed the traditional chronology of the "yugas" wrong and rigged for political reasons, but that Yukteswar may have had political reasons of his own, evident in a police report printed in "Atlantis and the Cycles of Time", which links Yukteswar to a secret anti-colonial movement called Yugantar, meaning "new age" or "transition of an epoch".
Godwin claims the Jain time cycle and the European myth of progress influenced Yukteswar, whose theory only recently became prominent outside India. Humanity in an upward cycle is contrary to traditional ideas. Godwin points out many philosophies and religions that started during a time when "man could not see beyond the gross material world" (701BCE1699CE). Only materialists and atheists would welcome the post-1700 age as an improvement.
John Major Jenkins, who adjusted ascending "Kali Yuga" from 499CE to 2012 in his version, criticizes Yukteswar as wanting the "cycle-bottom" to correspond to his education, beliefs, and historical understanding. Technology has thrust us deeper into material dependency and spiritual darkness.
René Guénon.
René Guénon (1886 – 1951) proposed a "Yuga Cycle" of 64,800 years in his 1931 French article, which was later translated in the book "Traditional Forms & Cosmic Cycles" (2001).
Guénon accepted the doctrine of the four "yugas", the 4:3:2:1 "yuga" length proportions, and "Kali Yuga" as the present age. He couldn't accept the extremely large lengths and felt they were encoded with additional zeros to mislead those who might use it to predict the future. He reduced a "Yuga Cycle" from 4,320,000 to 4,320 years (1,728 + 1,296 + 864 + 432), but he felt this was too short for humanity's history.
In looking for a multiplier, he worked backwards from the precession of the equinoxes (traditionally 25,920 years; 360 72-year degrees). Using 25,920 and 72, he calculated the sub-multiplier to be 4,320 years (72 x 60 = 4,320; 4,320 x 6 = 25,920). In noticing the "great year" of the Persians (~12,000) and Greeks (~13,000) as almost half the precession, he concluded a "great year" must be 12,960 years (4,320 x 3). In trying to find the whole number of "great years" in a "manvantara" or reign of Vaivasvata Manu, he found the reign of Xisuthros of the Chaldeans to be set to 64,800 years (12,960 x 5), someone he thought to be the same Manu. Guénon felt 64,800 years was a more plausible length that may line up with humanity's history. He calculated a 64,800 "manvantara" divided into a 4,320 "encoded" "Yuga Cycle" gave a multiplier of 15 (5 "great years"). Using 15 as the multiplier, he "decoded" a 5-"great year" "Yuga Cycle" as having the following "yuga" lengths:
Guénon did not give a start date for "Kali Yuga", but instead left clues in his description of the cataclysmic destruction of the Atlantean civilization. His commentator, Jean Robin, in an early 1980s publication, claimed to have decoded this description and calculated that "Kali Yuga" lasted from 4481BCE to 1999CE (2000CE excluding year 0). In "Les Quatre âges de l’humanité" ("The Four Ages of Humanity"), a book written in 1949 by Gaston Georgel, this same end date of 1999 CE was calculated; although, in his 1983 book titled "Le Cycle judéo-chrétien" ("The Judeo-Christian cycle"), he later argued to shift the cycle forward by 31 years to end in 2030 CE.
Alain Daniélou.
Alain Daniélou (1907 – 1994) proposed a "Yuga Cycle" of 60,487 years in his book "While the Gods Play: Shaiva Oracles and Predictions on the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind" (1985).
Daniélou and René Guénon had some correspondence where they both couldn't accept the extremely large lengths found in the Puranas. Daniélou mostly cited "Linga Purana" and his calculations are based on a 4,320,000-year "Yuga Cycle" containing (his calculation of 1000 ÷ 14) 71.42 "manvantaras", each containing 4 "yugas" [4:3:2:1 proportions]. He pegged 3102BCE as the start of "Kali Yuga" and placed it after the dawn ("yuga-sandhya"). He claimed his dates are accurate to within 50 years, and that the "Yuga Cycle" started with a great flood and appearance of Cro-Magnon man, and will end with a catastrophe wiping out mankind.
Godwin found that Daniélou's misunderstanding rests solely on a bad translation of "Linga Purana" 1.4.7.
Other cultures.
According to Robert Bolton, there is a universal belief in many traditions that the world started in a perfect state, when nature and the supernatural were still in harmony with all things in their fullest degree of perfection possible, which was followed by an unpreventable constant deterioration of the world through the ages.
In the "Works and Days" (lines 109–201; 700BCE), considered the earliest European writing about human ages, the Greek poet Hesiod describes five ages (Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron Ages), where the Heroic Age was added, according to Godwin, as a compromise with Greek history when the Trojan War and its heroes loomed so large. Bolton explains that the men of the Golden Age lived like gods without sorrow, toil, grief, and old age, while the men of the Iron Age ("the race of iron") never rest from labor and sorrow, are degenerated without shame, morality, and righteous indignation, and have short lives with frequent deaths at night, where even a new-born baby shows signs of old age, only to end when Zeus destroys it all.
In the "Statesman" (), the Athenian philosopher Plato describes time as an indefinite cycle of two 36,000-year halves: (1) the world's unmaking descent into chaos and destruction; (2) the world's remaking by its creator into a renewed state. In the "Cratylus" (397e), Plato recounts the golden race of men who came first, who were noble and good daemons (godlike guides) upon the earth.
In the "Metamorphoses" (I, 89–150; 8BCE), the Roman poet Ovid describes four ages (Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages), excluding Hesiod's Heroic Age, as a downward curve with the present time as the nadir of misery and immorality, according to Godwin, affecting both human life and the after-death state, where deaths in the first two ages became immortal watchful spirits that benefited the human race, deaths in the third age went to Hades (Greek god of the underworld), and deaths in the fourth age had an unknown fate.
Joscelyn Godwin posits that it is probably from Hindu tradition that knowledge of the ages reached the Greeks and other Indo-European peoples. Godwin adds that the number 432,000 ("Kali Yuga's" duration) occurring in four widely separated cultures (Hindu, Chaldean, Chinese, and Icelandic) has long been noticed.