THE YUGAS
SOMETHING UNEXPECTED OR THE SAME
A Yuga means a
joining or an alignment of planets and/or stars and/or their apogees and
perigees.
1. Chandramana
Yugadi:
Kannadigas and
Telugu people celebrate a Chandramana (Lunar) Yugadi, and Tamils celebrate a
Souramana (Solar)Yugadi, once a year, in spring. Yugadi means, the beginning of
a Yuga. In Telugu, it is frequently called Ugadi, with ‘y’ dropped by scholars
and laymen alike.
This Yuga is 1 year long. It is the time it takes for the
earth to complete 1 orbit around
the sun. In other words, it is the time the sun takes to finish one Uttarayanam
and one Dakshinayanam and to come back to the same place.
But what does ‘the
same place’ mean? It is the same place with reference to the earth’s orbit, and
it is slightly off from the same place with respect to the stars. Why is this?
Not only are we spinning around the sun, the earth is dragging us around the
galactic center. It takes one sidereal year for the sun to align with the same
stars.
Obviously all this
alignment requires a perspective - the question is - from where? Let us say
from Ujjain, or New Delhi or Rajahmundry. But from the same place of
observation. I like to think Ujjain, because of its historicity.
What is a lunar
year? Clearly, a lunar month has to do with the moon going around the earth
once. But there are many variations based on your frame of reference.
A sidereal month
is the time it takes for the moon to line up with the same star. This takes 27.321661 days (27 d 7 h 43 min 11.5 s). A synodic month is 29.53 days (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.8 seconds) and is measured from New Moon to
New Moon. There are many other kinds of lunar month. You can look them up. I
will not go into it now.
A lunar year is
usually 12 lunar months
long, ie 354.36 days if
you are using synodic months or 327.8599 days if you are thinking sidereal months.
Every 3 years an Adhika
Masam is added, to make up for the difference in the lengths of the solar and
lunar years. (It is like adding a leap day into the solar calendar once in 4 years). But now you have added 4.5 days too many. So the Sun, Moon and Stars
are not perfectly aligned as before yet. There is a lot of complex arithmetic,
which tells you when to add months and when not to. Some lunar days are a
little shorter than others and many other corrections are to be made. This is
what the Jyotisha Sastra Vedanga is all about. It takes a lot of effort to
learn.
But what did we
learn then? We have learned that Yugas have to do with alignment and the more
celestial bodies that have to line up, the more time it is going to take and
the more corrections it is going to take. Rishis of different times used
different Yuga definitions. Therefore they meant different lengths of time,
when they used the same word. A yuga of the Revati Nakshatra and the Sun (that
accounts for the precession), is about 27,000 years long. So we have one kind of a Yuga that is a year long, and
another kind which is 27,000 years
long.
2. Vedic Yugas:
Vedanga Jyothisham: Pitamaha Siddhantam: 5 years:
(In the
Uttarakanda of Ramayana, the word 'Pitamaha' is used to indicate Brahma, unless
specified.)
In the Ramayana,
when the word Pitamaha is used without qualification it means - Brahma. 1,830 solar days, 1,860 lunar tithis, 62 lunar months, and 60 solar months. There are 2 adhikamasas, 30 tithikshayas, 67 traverses of the moon among the stars,
i.e., each star ‘occurs’ 67 times. (When the moon aligns with a star, it is a star ‘occurence’,
nakshatram vacchindi.)
The Yuga starts
when Dhanishta is in Amavasya. (This will require a correction of 4.685 days in 5 years, which is done using a complex
method, which we shall attempt on another day). The names of the years are:
Samvatsaramu, Parivatsaramu, Idaavatsaramu, Anuvatsaramu, Idvatsaramu. Place:
As per this Sastra, on the day of Katakayanam (arrival of cancer), the night
was 2/3rds of the
day. This happens in Gandhar and Kashmir. Time: ‘Prapadyate Sravishthadou,
Suryachandramasavudak, sarparthe, dakshinarkasthou, magha sravanayo sada. When
Dhanistha Amavasya occurs, Surya is in the North, and when Asleshartha amavasya
occurs Ravi (Surya) is in the South. This lead to a date of 3500 years ago. (Translated and explained from
Vijnana Sarasvamu, 9th Samputamu,
Page 548-551).
3. Markandeya
Yugas, as per the Mahabharata: What Markandeya told Yudhisthira. Translation by
Kisari Mohan Ganguli - the best I have seen so far!
Markandeya
replied, "…..O best of kings and pre-eminent of men, after the dissolution
of the universe, all this wonderful creation again comes into life. Four
thousand years have been said to constitute the Krita Yuga. Its dawn also, as
well as its eve, hath been said to comprise four hundred years. The Treta-Yuga
is said to comprise three thousand years, and its dawn, as well as its eve, is
said to comprise three hundred years. The Yuga that comes next is called
Dwapara, and it hath been computed to consist of two thousand years. Its dawn,
as well as its eve, is said to comprise two hundred years. The next Yuga,
called Kali, is said to comprise one thousand years and its dawn, as well as
eve, is said to comprise one hundred years. Know, O king, that the duration of
the dawn is the same as that of the eve of a Yuga. And after the Kali Yuga is
over, the Krita Yuga comes again. A cycle of the Yugas thus comprised a period
of twelve thousand years. A full thousand of such cycles would constitute a day
of Brahma. O tiger among men, when all this universe is withdrawn and ensconced
within its home-the Creator himself-that disappearance of all things is called
by the learned to be Universal Destruction."
4. 1000 year
Chaturyugas: derivation based on the Revati-Raivata time loss story. That gives
400 years of
Krutha Yuga, 300 years of
Thretha Yuga, 200 years of
Dwapara Yuga and 100 years of Kali
Yuga.
5. SaptaRishi
Yuga: 2700 years.
Vishnu Purana also states that the Saptarshis, which are supposed to move @ one
Nakshatra for every 100 years (IV.24)
had moved 10 Nakshatras from Magha to Purvashada during
this interval, between the war and Mahapadma Nanda’s accession, which therefore
comes to 10×100
= 1000 years”
6. Romaka
Siddhantam: 2850 years
7. Poorva Surya
Siddhantham: 180,000 years or 1,800,000 years
8. Surya
Siddhantam: 4,320,000,000
years
9. Gavam Ayanam: 4 years. As per an article by ShamaSastry
the Gavam Ayanam, was in use from 3101 BC to 1260 BC. The word
‘Go’ refers to an intercalary day (like the extra day in a leap year).
One solar orbit
takes 365 and 1/4 days. A quarter is called a pada. The
modern way consists of taking 365 days in an ordinary year and 366 days in a leap year.
One Vedic method
was to take exactly 365 and a pada
days. The first year was called Kali or Ekata and it started in the evening and
ended at midnight after 365 days and a pada. The second year was called Dwapara, or Dwita and
started at midnight and ended in the morning after 365 days and a pada. The third Yuga was thretha
or tritha, started in the morning and ended in the afternoon after 365 days and a pada. These 3 are called the Visnu padas. The fourth
Yuga was called Krta or complete Yuga because it started in the afternoon but
ended in the evening after 365 days and a pada. Since it ended properly in the evening, it was also
called Satya or Rta Yuga.
10. Naveena
Siddhanthams: 4,320,000 years:
“All the planets started their journeys at one common point in the sky.” That
is, in the beginning, all the planets were lined up along a ray drawn from the
Sun. Then they began circling (the Sun) at different speeds; different speeds
because they are located at different distances. Then the Indian astronomers
suggested that the common point in the sky be identified as the location where
we find the star “Aswini,” the first of the twenty seven stars (really,
constellations) of the Hindu calendar. Stated differently, they imagined a time
when all the nine planets (mercury, venus, earth, mars, jupiter, saturn, and
the two shadow planets Rahu and Ketu), the apogees of their orbits, and their
nodes (i.e., the points where their orbits intersect the path of the Sun are
all near the star Aswini (or the modern Beta of Aries). They suggested that we
use that instance as the beginning of time for calendar purposes. Now suppose
we count the periods of orbital revolutions of the planets, roundoff the
periods to the nearest integers, and find their least common multiple (LCM).
That number turns out to be approximately 4.320 billion years, a number not too far from
the length of a Kalpa, defined earlier. One thousandth of this is 4.32 million years or a Maha Yuga. A tenth of
this Maha Yuga is the duration of Kali Yuga.
Let us begin at
the present time and work backwards. The current era is called Kali Yuga.
According to tradition, this era began with the death of Krishna, about 5,000 years ago. According to the ancient sages
of India, Kali Yuga will last for 4,32,000 years.
Immediately prior
to Kali Yuga was a stretch of time called Dwapar Yuga; it was twice as long as
Kali Yuga, or 2 x 4,32,000 years. Prior to that was Treta Yuga of 3 x 4,32,000 years. Before that, it was Krita Yuga with
a duration of 4 x 4,32,000 years. All these four yugas together is a
Maha Yuga, the Great Era. So a Maha Yuga is 4.32 million years, ten times as long as Kali
Yuga. Incidentally, the beginning of the latest Maha Yuga coincides roughly
with, what modern science calls, the emergence of humanoids. Twenty seven Maha
Yugas is one Pralaya. Seven Pralayas is one Manvantara. Finally, six
Manvantaras is a Kalpa. That is, one Kalpa is 27×7×6 = 1,134 Maha
Yugas. This works out to 1134 x 4.3 million = 4.876 billion years. And, according to modern
science, that is the approximate age of the planet Earth.” Quoted from this
site.
11. Aryabhatta
was a genius. He worked out the time it would take for a very large number of
planets, the stars and the sun and the moon to align. That is why the Yuga and
Kalpa lengths that he calculated are of the same order of magnitude as the big
bang. He was able to do this because, he was a brilliant astronomer and
mathematician and he had also figured out that it is the earth that goes around
the sun and not vice versa.
Aryabhatta did
this a VERY long time before Copernicus. Just as Markandeya had worked out the
precession of equinoxes a VERY long time before Hipparchus and Ptolemy. Exactly
how long ago, you will ask? And how can you prove what you say? For this, I
will have to put you on hold for a little while. I shall have to work out.
There are four Yugas in one cycle:
- Satya Yuga, a time of truth and righteousness;
- Treta Yuga
- Dwapara Yuga
- Kali Yuga, a time of darkness, crime and non-virtue.
The ages see a gradual decline of dharma, wisdom, knowledge, intellectual capability, life span, emotional and physical strength.
- Satya Yuga:- Virtue reigns supreme. Human stature was 21 cubits. Average human lifespan was 100,000 years.
- Treta Yuga: – There was 3 quarter virtue & 1 quarter sin. Normal human stature was 14 cubits. Average human lifespan was 10,000 years.
- Dwapara Yuga: – There was 1 half virtue & 1 half sin. Normal human stature was 7 cubits. Average human lifespan was 1,000 years.
- Kali Yuga: – There is 1 quarter virtue & 3 quarter sin. Normal human stature is 3.5 cubits. Average human lifespan will be 100 years.
1. Which Yuga
System was Vyasa was using? We know that Aryabhatta lived after Vyasa and could
not have influenced him. We know this because of a statement that Aryabhatta
made. He said that he lived 6×60 years after
Kali Yuga started. (Some people say that he said 60×60 years after Kali started... is the word shahtyabdanam shadbhih or is
it shastyabdanam shahstih..? : Page 70; 9th samputamu,
Vijnana Sarvasvamu, Telugu Encyclopedia) We believe that he lived 360 years into kaliyuga and not 3600 years after. Either way, he lived after
Vyasa, who wrote the Mahabharatam from 1 year Kali to 4 year Kali.
2. When did Vyasa
live? We know that Markandeya and Vyasa were contemporaries. In the Mahabharata,
Vyasa gives Markandeya’s explanation of the Yugas and Markandeya talks to the
Pandavas, etc.
We all accept that
Ptolemy was 150 AD and
Copernicus was 16th century AD
by western accounts.
Some data points:
Ravana’s
grandfather, Pulastya was of Krutha Yuga (Uttarakanda, Ramayanam)
Ravana annoyed
Vedavathi in the Krutha Yuga and was killed by Sri Rama in the Tretha Yuga. It
is also said that Krutha Yuga ended at the time of Vedavathi’s death.
(Uttarakanda - Ramaynana)
Sri Rama who
killed Ravana and was younger to him, was of Threta Yuga.
Sri Krishna was of
Dwapara Yuga. His death marked the beginning of Kali Yuga (Mahabharatam and
Bhagavatham)
What is Kali Yuga?
Commonly held view: As we understand it today, it is a
period of 432,000 years duration, the fourth in a set of Catur Yugas: Krutha,
Thretha, Dwapara and Kali. Dwapara is 2 times as long as Kali, Thretha is 3
times as long as Kali and Krutha is 4 times as long as Kali Yuga. Krutha Yuga
is a pure period and Kali Yuga is a bad time. Today we are in the first of 4
quarters (padas) of Kali Yuga. At the end of Kali Yuga, an avatar of Vishnu
called Kalki will destroy all the evildoers. This much anyone who is moderately
well read will tell you.
We know that Vyasa started writing the Mahabharata in Year 1
of Kali Yuga and completed it in year 4 of Kali Yuga, as per his reckoning.
(Given in the Nannaya Bharatam). When we pray, we say, “Jambudvipe, bharatha
varshe, bharatha khande, Meroyah dakshina digbhage,” then give some
geographical info giving our relation to rivers and holy places, Svetta Varaha
Kalpe, Dwitiya Praharardhe, Vaiswata Manvantare, Kaliyuge prathama pade, name
of the year in the 60 year cycle - Prabhava, Vibhava, etc.”... then go on with
the tithi vara, nakshatra information. We reckon that we are still in the first
quarter of the Kali Yuga.
History and the start date of Kali Yuga:
The Mahabharata war occurred towards the end of Dwapara Yuga
and a Kali Yuga started around the time of Sri Krishna’s death. When did Kali
Yuga begin? Arybhatta made some statements by which we believe that Kali Yuga
started in 3102 BC.
Aryabhatta noted that 3600 or 360 years (depending on how we
interpret the shloka) of Kali Yuga were just completed when he was 23 years old
and when it was year 421 in the Saka calendar. From this we know that the year
1 of the saka that he was talking about occurred in the year 3179 of Kali Yuga
that he was referring to. The figure of 432,000 years for the duration of Kali
Yuga was given by Aryabhatta, based on the line-up of planets.
Markandeya said that Kali Yuga was 1200 years ago and that
the Chaturyuga was 12000 years old.
Markandeya was senior to Vyasa and Aryabhatta was later to
Vyasa. Markandeya’s durations are quoted by Vyasa in the Mahabharata. It is
very likely that Veda Vyasa was using Markandeya’s yuga durations.
Many scholars take the view that Markandeya was talking
about a divine year which is 360 times as long as a human year. Tilak says that
1 day and night of a Deva = 1 human year of a human, because those days were
measured at the poles, not in some other loka, and therefore 1 divine year = 1
human year.
The duration of the Yugas were different as per the
reckoning of Markandeya and Aryabhatta. But were their start dates or Zero
Points the same?
Unique eclipse pair combination just before the Bharata War:
Dr. Balakrishna has done a detailed analysis based on
astronomical evens mentioned in the Mahabharata and gives two likely candidates
for the Bharata war. They are 3129 BC, 27 years before Sri Krishna departed in
3102 BC, the start of Kali Yuga, and 2559 BCJ.
If the Bharata war occurred in 3129 BC, then the Zero Points
of Markandeya’s Kali Yuga and Aryabhatta’s Kali Yuga coincided near the time of
the Bharata war.
Many scholars give different dates for the Bharata war and
give different reasons to prove why they are right.
As per Vyasa and others, year 1 of Kali Yuga started with
Sri Krishna’s death or thereabouts, a few decades after the Mahabharata war.
Saunaka and other rishis performed a Yajna in Naimisaranya
to ward off the evil effects of Kali Yuga. We have plenty of literature to show
that the brahmans were afraid of Kali Yuga, because they predicted (fairly
accurately) that their supremacy would end in Kali Yuga.
We know that Vyasa said that Kali Yuga started in the year
of death of Krishna. Some say the very moment of His death, and others say,
thereabouts.
The brahmans were very afraid of what would happen with the
death of Sri Krishna, even though Parikshit proved a great and able ruler who
contained the evil effects of Kali for about 60 years, till his death.
We know that Yudhisthira ruled justly for some years of Kali
Yuga, and left for the hills soon after Sri Krishna’s death.
Vyasa does not mention the Saka Era, which Aryabhatta does.
Vyasa was not aware of the “Saka Era” that we talk about today. But the word
sakam simply meant era, and that word was used as in Jayabhyudaya Yudhisthira
Sakam.
We know that Saraswathi river had a lesser water flow,
because of Vyasa’s request ‘not to make so much noise and to let him
concentrate’, when he was writing the Mahabharatam. So the drying up of the
Saraswati was around this time. If we look at the time the Thar became a
desert, that will give us another clue.
In Markandaya’s definition of Kali Yuga, the first pada of
Kali Yuga was 250 years long and started after a 100 year Kali Yuga dawn.
So when we talk of the past, we overestimate the durations.
Vyasa’s idea of the Dwapara Yuga was possibly 2400 years the same as
Markandaya’s.
The Mahapralaya (Universal Dissolution) that Markandeya told
the Pandavas about was 1,200 short of 1,2000 years before their time, it was
10,800 years ago as per Markandeya. If Kali Yuga did start in 3102 BC as
indicated above, then the Mahapralaya was 15,910 years ago.
Going by Vyasa and Markandeya and by a Kali Yuga start date
of 3102 BC, we have Satya Yuga starting in 1902 BC(E) and going on till 2898
AD(CE). There are some contemporary Rishis who agree that we are in the fourth
quarter of Satya Yuga and we are approaching a Yuga Sandhi, the dusk of the
Satya Yuga that lasts 400 years and will start in 2498 AD (CE).
Timeline: So far:
Sri Krishna’s death, Dwaraka drowning Kali Yuga begins (3102
BCE). (The NIO and ASI estimate that the Dwaraka found under the sea maybe not
later than 2000 BC - (but I have more reading to do about this. Two more
underwater cities have been found near the gulf of Cambay….)
Vyasa writes Mahabharatam from Kali Yuga 1 to Kali Yuga 4
(3102 - 3098 BCE)
Pariskshit dies in Kali Yuga 60 (3042 BCE).
Aryabhatta says that he is 23 in year 360 (or 3600) Kali
Yuga (2742 BCE or 498 AD).
ICE AGE :
Over the Earth's long history, there have been a number of
times when much of the northern hemisphere was covered by vast sheets of ice
and snow. Such periods are known as ice ages. During ice ages, huge masses of slowly
moving glacial ice—up to two kilometres (one mile) thick—scoured the land like
cosmic bulldozers. At the peak of the last glaciation, about 20 000 years ago,
approximately 97% of Canada was covered by ice.
It may seem hard to believe, but an ice age can occur if the
average daily temperature drops by only a few degrees Celsius for an extensive
period. Ice ages include colder and warmer fluctuations. During colder
intervals, called glacial periods, glaciers and ice sheets grow and advance.
(As the snow gets deeper and deeper, the lower portion turns to ice and its
incredible weight makes the ice sheet flow across the land). In warmer
intervals, known as interglacial periods, glaciers and ice sheets shrink and
retreat.
The Earth is in an ice age now. It started about 2 million
years ago and is known as the Quaternary Period. Despite the many warm periods
since then, we identify the entire time as one ice age because of the
continuous existence of at least one large ice sheet—the one over Antarctica. (The
glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet are also of long standing, but they are
more recent). We are currently enjoying a warm interval: our climate represents
an interglacial period that began about 10 000 years ago. The preceding glacial
period lasted about 80 000 years.
At least seven ice ages have been recognized. At least four
of them are considered significant because of the extent of their glaciation or
because they lasted for an extremely long time:
about 2 million years ago to the present—the Quaternary Ice
Age
350 to 250 million years ago—the Karoo Ice Age
800 to 600 million years ago—the Cryogenian (or
Sturtian-Varangian) Ice Age
2400 to 2100 million years ago—the Huronian Ice Age.
Some regions escaped glaciation during the Pleistocene Epoch
of the Quaternary Ice Age because they were too dry for enough snow to fall to
form glaciers. Other regions were too high in elevation for the ice to cover
them, or they were farther south than the glaciers advanced. Glacier-free zones
are called refugia, and the plants and animals that survived there repopulated
the land once the glaciers melted. During the Pleistocene, the distribution and
kinds of plants and animals were greatly affected.
In Canada, the richest stores of Pleistocene bones are in
Yukon's Old Crow Basin—part of the Eastern Beringian refugium. There, thousands
of fossils have been collected that demonstrate the existence of a remarkable
fauna, including woolly mammoths, bison, mastodons, giant beavers, small
horses, camels, cow-sized ground sloths, American scimitar cats and lions.
These species became extinct toward the close of the Pleistocene—perhaps due to
a combination of rapidly changing climate and human hunting. However, wolves,
caribou, muskoxen, moose and other animals survived.
topic in detail going to be uploaded soon. comment and share.
