Correct Yuga Timescales

In this note, which is based on Jijnasu’s video, we will see how a simple calculation mentioned in Mahabharata got messed up and which led the whole country believe some wrong numbers about Yuga time scales.

As per the current prevalent popular narrative, we are now in kali yuga and the total number of years in Kali yuga is 4,32,000 years of which only about 5,000 years is supposed to have passed. And it then goes on further as Dwapar Yuga is 8,64,000 years [krishna's time comes towards the end of the dwapar Yuga], Treta Yuga is supposed to be 12,96,000 years and is supposed to be Rama's time. As you can see according to this calculation the difference between krishna's time and Rama's time is a minimum of 8,64,000 years and then finally we have Krita Yuga or Satya Yuga which is 17,28,000 years. If these numbers are looking absurd it is because they are absurd.

Now let us look at the source of this issue itself. Mahabarata in Shanti parwa chapter 231, [in a conversation between Vyasa Maharshi and his son Shuka] says:

Chatvari Yahuh Sahashtrani,

Varshanam Tat Kritam Yugam.

Krita (Sat) Yuga is of 4,000 years and then the next line clarifies that it is also accompanied by a transition period of 800 years so the total number of years in Krita yuga is 4,800 years.

Then the next verse says that each subsequent Yuga will lose one quarter of this number which means Treta yuga is 3,600 years, Dwapar is 2400 years and Kali is 1200 years so all the four yugas together come to 12,000 years.

And then it further says that this is only one half, as there is also a complimentary half to it, so the total number of years of one full cycle is 24,000 years.

Now Mahabharat is not the only text to have reported this, there are other scriptures also which say the exact same thing and more importantly this number finds an agreement in modern astronomy as well.

There is something called the great year which is based on the observation that equinoxes move cyclically through the Zodiac and this movement happens at a rate of approximately 1 degree per 72 years which means a total of about 25,800 years for one full cycle through the zodiac as you can see this is very close to the numbers that Mahabharata is giving for the span of one Maha Yuga.

‘Holy Science’, a book written by Shri yukteswar giri, Guru of Paramahamsa Yogananda, mentions this aspect too. He says that our sun is revolving around a Grand Center and that is what causes the movement of the equinoxes through the Zodiac. He says that when we are close closest to this Grand Center, human mind becomes extremely perceptive and that is Satya Yuga. When we are farthest from this Grand Center, human mind becomes very dull and imperceptive and that is Kali Yuga.

As you can see if we are talking of a cycle then there has to be a descending half and an ascending half. Two Kali Yugas would come together and two Satya yugas or krita yugas would also come together so the traditional claim which is prevalent which says that after Kali Yuga there will be Satya Yuga is also erroneous and such an Abrupt jump is illogical as well because if it was so we cannot call it a cycle we cannot call it Yuga chakra.

Yukteswar giri further says that we are presently in the ascending cycle and in dwapar Yuga. Sadguru also says that we are now towards the end of the ascending dwapar yoga and Treta yuga is going to start in 2082.

Now let us come to this question of how did these ridiculous numbers of lakhs and lakhs of years become prevalent. the chapter in shantia in Mahabharata which I referred to earlier. It leads up to the calculation of the yugas like this first it says that one month of human beings is equivalent to one day of the pitrus or the ancestral world then it says that one year of human beings is one day of the devatas or the gods then it goes on to describe what constitutes one day of Brahma and then finally it arrives at the number 1,000 Maha Yuga constitutes one day of Brahma and one mahay Yuga as we saw earlier is described as 24,000 years.

But some over enthusiastic samskrit scholar committed a blunder at some point and translated the last item as 24,000 Dev Varsha or God years so they ended up multiplying 24,000 with 365 and arrived at these absurd figures of 4 lakh, 8 Lakh or whatever.

But God year is not mentioned anywhere and all preceding calculations are based on human years as the basis. So the question is why will there be a change only for the last item alone. In fact Vyasa Maharshi himself clearly declares in this chapter that I will now tell the span of the Brahma day in terms of the human day therefore there is no need to go into any speculations in the first place. So this is clearly a blunder of some scholar and unfortunately no one dare to challenge this after him.

The Dark Age has already passed (as per the correct calculations mentioned above), but people are still holding on to a mistake that was committed in the Dark Age. So kaliyuga is surviving today only as a lie, that sprouted during Kaliyuga.

So anyway, whether we go by Mahabharat’s account, or other scriptures of bharatiya vangamay or Swami Yukteswarn Giri's account or Sadguru's account, we are no more in Kaliyuga and if kaliyuga itself is long over then which Kalki avatar are we waiting for?

No one is coming. This Kalki business itself seems to be the mischief of some of the scholars of the Dark Ages. Maybe something was said earlier poetically in an abstract

way / in a cryptic way and the scholars understood it in their own way and changed it to something else all together. For example we can clearly see that the popular concept of avataras is essentially just a depiction of the evolution of life and evolution of human beings.

But the scholars of the Kaliyuga were probably too dense to grasp this, so instead of seeing that it represents a “Rise Of Consciousness” they inverted the whole thing and said that this is about a Descent of someone from the heavens. Human mind became more and more imperceptive more and more religious more and more dumb in the Dark Ages and people started Fantasizing that somebody would come down from upstairs.

See, such a simple calculation itself was messed up and they made the whole country believe such stupid wrong numbers for thousands of years and we have been mindlessly repeating it.

Who knows what else they have made us believe through their writings they may have written texts or they could have modified texts which were existing at that time to suit their fantasy because human mind had become stupefied and it did not want to take responsibility for itself. They wanted someone else to come and fix their life as you know this fantasy exists in all religions in different ways. I think Christians says the second coming of Jesus and whatever everybody fantasizes something in different ways so this whole idea of the descending of the Divine itself looks like a hallucination which sprouted when the human mind was in a low face when the human mind was childish.

It is time we outgrew these childish schemes. Nothing or nobody is going to descend from anywhere; but human consciousness can rise if we take responsibility for ourselves and if do the right things.

Actually that is what all the heroes of mankind were. All the people that we have today converted into religious figures or even gods, that is what they were; they did not descend but they Rose and they inspired everyone around them and therefore they became icons. So let us not dehumanize them and simply dismiss all their work by God zoning them. Let us take inspiration from them and strive to Blossom. Earth is our home so if we have messed it up let us take responsibility for it and let us fix it. Let us not wait for some alien entity to descend from somewhere and fix it for us anyway we are now in the ascending cycle so let us wake up.