Yuga Cycle Timeline

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Part 1: Unraveling the Yuga Cycle Timeline

The Yuga Cycle doctrine tells us that we are now living in the Kali Yuga; the age ofdarkness, when moral virtue and mental capabilities reach their lowest point in the

cycle. The Indian epic The Mahabharata describes the Kali Yuga as the period when the !orld "oul# is $lack in hue; only one %uarter of virtue remains, which slowly dwindlesto &ero at the end of the Kali Yuga. 'en turn to wickedness; disease, lethargy, anger,natural calamities, anguish and fear of scarcity dominate. (enance, sacrifices andreligious observances fall into disuse. )ll creatures degenerate. Change passes over allthings, without e*ception.

The Kali Yuga +Iron )ge was preceded by three others Yugas- "atya or Krita Yuga+ olden )ge , Treta Yuga +"ilver )ge and the /wapara Yuga +$ron&e )ge . Inthe Mahabharata , 0anuman gives the following description of the Yuga Cycle to the(andava prince $hima-

1The Krita Yuga was so named because there was but one religion, and all menwere saintly- therefore they were not re%uired to perform religious ceremonies2'en neither bought nor sold; there were no poor and no rich; there was no needto labour, because all that men re%uired was obtained by the power of will2TheKrita Yuga was without disease; there was no lessening with the years; therewas no hatred, or vanity, or evil thought whatsoever; no sorrow, no fear. )llmankind could attain to supreme blessedness. The universal soul was !hite2the identification of self with the universal soul was the whole religion of the(erfect )ge. In the Treta Yuga sacrifices began, and the !orld "oul became 3ed;virtue lessened a %uarter. 'ankind sought truth and performed religiousceremonies; they obtained what they desired by giving and by doing. In the/wapara Yuga the aspect of the !orld "oul was Yellow- religion lessened one4half. The 5eda was divided into four parts, and although some had knowledge ofthe four 5edas, others knew but three or one. 'ind lessened, Truth declined, andthere came desire and diseases and calamities; because of these men had toundergo penances. It was a decadent )ge by reason of the prevalence of sin.# 678

)nd now we are living in the dark times of the Kali Yuga, when goodness and virtue hasall but disappeared from the world. $ut when did the Kali Yuga begin9 )nd when does itend9 In spite of the elaborate theological framework which describes the characteristicsof this age, the start and end dates of the Kali Yuga remain shrouded in mystery. Thepopularly accepted date for the beginning of the Kali Yuga is :7 < $C, thirty4five yearsafter the conclusion of the great battle of the 'ahabharata. This is remarkably close to

the proposed beginning of the current reat Cycle# of the 'ayan =ong Count Calendarin :77> $C. It is of interest to note that in both of these cases the beginning dates ofthe respective cycles were calculated retrospectively. The 'ayans had recomputed theirancient calendars sometime between > $C to ? C@, at the ceremonial center ofI&apa in 'e*ico, and fi*ed the starting date of the current reat Cycle of their =ongCount Calendar. )nd in India, sometime around ? C@, a maAor review of the Indiancalendric systems had taken place. It was during this time that the renownedastronomer )ryabhatta had identified the beginning date of the Kali Yuga as :7 < $C.

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!hy was it suddenly necessary for two ancient civili&ations to re4calculate dates thatshould have been an integral part of their calendric systems9 How did such importanttime-markers slip out of their collective memory 9 !e will revisit these %uestions later.

It is generally believed that )ryabhatta had calculated the start date of the Kali Yuga onthe basis of the information in the "anskrit astronomical treatise, the Surya Siddhanta ,according to which the five geocentric planets# +i.e. the planets visible to the nakedeye B 'ercury, 5enus, 'ars, upiter and "aturn B were aligned to ° of )ries +near thestar zeta Piscium at the beginning of the Kali Yuga. 0e, thus, arrived at the date of7DE7F Gebruary, :7 < $C as the starting point of the Kali Yuga. 0owever, modernsimulations carried out by 3ichard Thompson show that on 7DE7F Gebruary, :7 < $C,the five geocentric planets occupied an arc of roughly >< ° in the sky and were scatteredover three &odiacal signs B )ries, (isces and )%uarius. This cannot be considered as aconAunction by any means. Gar more spectacular Halignment of planets has occurred inthe preceding and succeeding centuries. In other words, the conAunction of geocentricplanets at ° of )ries that was supposedly targeted by )ryabhatta did not take place in:7 < $C.

/oes this mean )ryabhatta made an error in his back calculations9 Jot really. Gor, the"urya "iddhanta does not ever specify that such an alignment of planets took place atthe beginning of the Kali uga . n the contrary, the "urya "iddhanta e*plicitly statesthat this conAunction of planets at ° of )ries takes place at the end of the !olden

"ge +"atya E Krita Yuga . The te*t states- Jow, at the end of the olden )ge +KritaYuga , all the planets, by their mean motion B e*cepting however their nodes andapsides B are in conAunction in the first of )ries# 68 This reat Year# which is known by various other names B (erfect Year#, (latonic Year#, "upreme Yearof )ristotle# etc. B was variously represented as being of 7 years +Cicero or7 ,F years +0eraclitus duration.

There can be no doubt that the :7 < $C date for the Kali Yuga was not based on anyinformation in the "urya "iddhanta or any other "anskrit te*t. The date virtually pops

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out of nowhere. $efore ? C@, this date was not mentioned in any "anskrit te*t. Gromwhere, then, did )ryabhatta obtain this date9 There seems to be no indication that)ryabhatta had computed this date himself. There is a single, stray reference to thisdate in the "anskrit te*t "ryabhatiya# where )ryabhatta mentions that the te*t wascomposed $#%&& years into the Kali uga# when he was '$ years old . "ince the

)ryabhatiya was composed in >MM C@, the beginning of the Kali Yuga can be traced backto :7 < $C. The statement, by itself, does not reveal any information about theastronomical basis on which the date was calculated, or whether the calculation wasperformed by )ryabhatta himself. It is possible that this date was adopted by)ryabhatta from some other source. The vagueness surrounding the origin of this datemakes its validity highly suspect.

The task of figuring out this date from the ancient "anskrit te*ts, however, is fraughtwith difficulties, since a number of inaccuracies have crept into the Yuga Cycleinformation contained within them. )s pointed out by "ri Yukteswar, in many "anskritte*ts the 7,:< , years by introducing a multiplication factor of

:N #, which was represented as the number of human years# which constitutes a divine year#. 0owever, certain te*ts, such as the Mahabharata and the (aws of Manu ,still retain the original value of the Yuga Cycle as 7


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that the current observed value of precession may simply be a temporary deviationfrom the mean.

The concept of an ascending and descending cycle of Yugas is not a proposition thatYukteswar conAured out of thin air. This idea is still prevalent among the ains of India,who are one of the oldest religious sects of the country. The ains believe that acomplete Time Cycle +Kalachakra has a progressive and a regressive half. /uring theprogressive half of the cycle +Ltsarpini , there is a gradual increase in knowledge,happiness, health, ethics, and spirituality, while during the regressive half of the cycle+)vasarpini there is a gradual reduction in these %ualities. @ach half cycle is comprisedof si* smaller periods, and together these two half cycles constitute a complete TimeCycle. These two half cycles follow each other in an unbroken succession for eternity,

Aust like the cycles of day and night or the wa*ing and waning of the moon. It ispossible that Yukteswar may have been influenced by the belief system of the ancientains; or he may have based his ideas on ancient oral traditions that are not a part ofthe mainstream documented knowledge.

The idea of an ascending and descending Cycle of )ges was also prevalent in reekmyths. The reek poet 0esiod +c. D? $C B N? $C had given an account of the !orld)ges in the 0orks and 1ays , in which he had inserted a fifth age called the )ge of0eroes#, between the $ron&e )ge and the Iron )ge. In Hesiod2s 3osmos , enny "traussClay writes-

/rawing on the myth in (lato s Statesman , 5ernant also claimed that thetemporal framework of 0esiodic myth, that is, the succession of races, is notlinear but cyclical; at the end of the age of iron, which he divides into two, thecycle of races starts again with a new golden age or, more likely, a new age ofheroes, as the se%uence reverses itself25ernant himself offers a solution whenhe remarks that Hthere is not in reality one age of iron but two types of human

e*istence. # 6D8This is highly interesting. ean4(ierre 5ernant, who is a highly acclaimed specialist inancient reek culture, clearly believes that the Cycle of the )ges reverses itself as per0esiod s account. Jot only that, he states that the Iron )ge has two parts, whichcorresponds e*actly to Yukteswar s interpretation in which the descending Kali Yuga isfollowed by the ascending Kali Yuga. !e can surmise, in this conte*t, that the )ge of0eroes#, which immediately followed the $ron&e )ge in 0esiod s account, must be thename ascribed by 0esiod to the descending Kali uga .

The evidence from different sources supports the notion of a complete Yuga Cycle of, years, comprised of an ascending and descending cycle of 7


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• Treta Yuga (Silver Age): : years : years dawn : years twilightQ "# year!

• $%a&ara Yuga ('ron e Age) - < years < years dawn < yearstwilight Q 4 year!

•

*ali Yuga (+ron Age) - 7 years 7 years dawn 7 years twilightQ 1 year!

"ince so many inaccuracies have crept into the Yuga Cycle doctrine, as pointed out byYukteswar and Tilak, we also need to %uestion the accuracy of the relative durations ofthe Yugas mentioned in the "anskrit te*ts. )lthough the Yuga Cycle is mentioned in themythic accounts of around thirty ancient cultures, as described by iorgio de "antillana,professor of the history of science at 'IT, in the book Hamlet2s Mill +7MNM , we find verylittle information regarding the relative durations of the different ages within this cycle.This is %uite surprising. Jearly all the accounts tell us that virtue and righteousnessdecreases as we move from the olden )ge to the subse%uent ages. "ome of themspecifically mention that virtue decreases by a 4uarter in every age. 0owever, there

appears to be scant mention of the durations of the ages themselves. 5f the duration ofeach uga decreased from one uga to the ne6t# shouldn2t this important point alsohave been mentioned in these accounts7

In the few accounts where the durations of the Yuga are specified, we find that eachage in the Yuga Cycle is of the same duration. Gor instance, the Ooroastrians believethat the world lasts for 7


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astronomer $rahmagupta, who in turn derived his knowledge from the "anskrit Smritite6ts . 0e makes an interesting statement in this regard-

Gurther, $rahmagupta says that )ryabhatta considers the four yugas as thefour e%ual parts of the caturyuga * uga 3ycle/9 Thus he differs from the doctrineof the book Smriti , Aust mentioned, and he who differs from us is an opponent#.6F8

The fact that )ryabhatta believed the four yugas to be of e%ual duration is e*tremelypertinentS )l4$eruni reasserts this in no uncertain terms- Therefore, according to)ryabhatta, the Kali Yuga has : divya years2.each two yugas has N divyayears2each three years has M divya years.# !hy would )ryabhatta subscribe tosuch a belief9 /id he have access to sources of information that are lost to us now9

"urprisingly, it was not only )ryabhatta, who held this point of view. )nother celebratedastronomer of ancient India was (aulisa, who had apparently earned $rahmagupta sfavor by supporting the >-:- Yugas of e%ualduration of :, divine4years each. 0owever, their opinion was overshadowed by thecontradictory view held by $rahmagupta. 0e railed against )ryabhatta and the otherastronomers who held differing opinions, and even abused them. )l4$eruni says about$rahmagupta-

0e is rude enough to compare )ryabhatta to a worm which, eating the wood, bychance describes certain characters in it without understanding them and withoutintending to draw them. 0e, however, who knows these things thoroughly,stands opposed to )ryabhatta, "rishena, and 5ishnucandra like the lion againstga&elles. They are not capable of letting him see their faces. # In such offensiveterms he attacks )ryabhatta and maltreats him.# 67


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manipulation was introduced because people were inclined to believe that the durationof a Yuga should decrease in tandem with the decrease in virtue and human longetivityfrom one Yuga to the ne*t. ) neat formula was devised in which the total duration ofthe Yugas added up to 7,:< , years +7:


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periods of 7? years each, one occurring at the beginning of the Yuga, knownas Sandhya +i.e. dawn , and the other at its termination, known as Sandhyansa +i.e.twilight . The total duration of the Yuga Cycle, e6cluding the transitional periods , ise%ual to + i.e. 7 ,F years, which is same as the duration of the reat Year of 0eraclitus# in the 0ellenic traditionS

It is agreed by historians that the "aptarsi Calendar that was in use during the 'auryaperiod in the > th century $C, started in NNDN $C. In the book, Traditions of the Seven8sis: , /r. .@. 'itchiner confirms this- !e may conclude that the older and originalversion of the @ra of the "even 3sis commenced with the "even 3sis in Krttika in NNDN$C2This version was in use in northern India from at least the > th century $C, aswitnessed by the statements of reek and 3oman writers; it was also the version usedby 5rddha arga, at around the start of the Christian era.# 67>8

In fact, the recorded choronology of Indian kings goes back further than NNDN $C asdocumented by the reek and 3oman historians (liny and )rrian. (liny states that,

Grom Gather =iber 63oman $acchus or reek /ionysus8 to )le*ander the reat +d. : kings, and they reckon +the time as N>?7 years and :months.# 67?8 )rrian puts 7?: kings and N>N< years between /ionysus and"androkottos +Chandragupta 'aurya , to whose court a reek embassy was sent in:7> $C. 67N8 $oth indications add up to a date of roughly c.NDDN $C, which is a 7years prior to the beginning of the "aptarsi Calendar in NNDN $C.

It is obvious from the accounts of (liny and )rrian that they must have identifieda specific king in the Indian kings list, who corresponded to the reek /ionysus or3oman $acchus, and whose reign had ended at around c.NDDN $C. !ho could that havebeen9 )ccording to the renowned scholar and rientalist "ir !illiam ones, /ionysus or$acchus was none other than the Indian monarch 3ama. In his essay ;n the !ods of!reece# 5taly and 5ndia # +7DF> , "ir !illiam ones deems 3ama to be the same as the

recian /ionysos, who is said to have con%uered India with an army of satyrs,commanded by (an; and 3ama was also a mighty con%ueror, and had an army of largemonkeys or satyrs, commanded by 'aruty +0anuman , son of (avan. 3ama is alsofound, in other points, to resemble the Indian $acchus.# 67D8 "ir !illiam ones alsopoints out that, Meros is said by the reeks to have been a mountain of India, onwhich their /ionysus was born, and that Meru is also a mountain near the city ofJaishada, or Jysa, called by the recian geographers /ionysopolis, and universallycelebrated in the "anskrit poems.# 67F8

$oth (liny and )rrian were aware of these associations. (liny had placed the /ionysiansatyrs in the tropical mountains of India#, while we learn from )rrian +0ist.Ind. p :7F,:


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The identification of /ionysus with 3ama provides us with fresh perspectives. )ccordingto the Indian tradition, 3ama had lived towards the end of the Treta Yuga +"ilver )ge ,and the /wapara Yuga +$ron&e )ge had started soon after his demise. This impliesthat the NNDN $C date for the beginning of the "aptarsi Calendar, which is a 7 yearsafter /ionysus i.e. 3ama, indicates the beginning of the /wapara Yuga in the

descending cycle.) later "aptarsi Calendar, still in use in India, began from : DN $C. $ut, as /r. "ubhashKak points out, the new count that goes back to : DN $C was started later to make itas close to the start of the Kali era as possible# 6< 8 . This modification can be easilyidentified, since in : DN $C, the reat $ear were in the 'agha# nakshatra +lunarasterism as mentioned by 5arahamihira in


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Fig : 0uga +ycle Ti eline.

This Yuga Cycle timeline takes the beginning of the olden )ge to 7,? years before present, when the reat $ear was in the "hravana# nakshatra+the reat $ear will advance by : nakshtras in every Yuga because of the : yeartransitional period . This agrees very well with the Indian tradition, sincethe Mahabharata mentions that in the ancient tradition the "hravana nakshatra wasgiven the first place in the Jakshatra cycle. The timeline also indicates that theascending Kali Yuga, which is the current epoch in which we are living, will end in <


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survivors of the cataclysm, who carry with them the technical and spiritual knowledgeof the previous epoch. 'any ancient sources tell us of the enigmatic group of "even"ages# + "aptarsi# who are said to appear at the beginning of every Yuga andpromulgate the arts of civili&ation. !e find them in myths from across the world B in"umeria, India, (olynesia, "outh )merica and Jorth )merica. They possessed infinite

wisdom and power, could travel over land and water, and took on various forms at will.!ere they the survivors of the previous Yuga or visitors from outer space9 pinionsdiffer on this point, but surely neither option can be discarded without proper scrutiny.In any case, the main point is that the transitional periods between Yugas mustnecessarily correlate with the severe cataclysmic events that regularly impact ourplanet, as reflected in the archeological records. )s we shall see, the Yuga Cycletimeline proposed here correlates with these catastrophic events with a stunningaccuracy. In addition, the transitional periods can also be correlated with dates recordedin various ancient calendars and traditions.

The first transitional period in the 7


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The : year transitional period between the Treta Yuga +"ilver )ge and the /waparaYuga +$ron&e )ge from NMDN $C B NNDN $C also coincides with a significantenvironmental event B the


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Fig : The Black !ea catastrophe2 be"ore an, a"ter. The 'ater "ro the Me,iterranean (-egean) !ea2 cut through anarro' Gorge (no' kno'n as the Bosphorous !trait)2 an, plunge, into the Black !ea ('hose 'ater level 'as 3

belo' sea level) creating a gigantic 'ater"all. 4very ,ay "or t'o years2 5# cubic k o" sea 'ater cut through thenarro' channel an, plunge, into the lake 6 ore than # ti es the "lo' over &iagara Falls. !ource: &-!-

The transitional period between the /wapara Yuga and Kali Yuga, from :MDN $C B :NDN$C was again marked by a series of environmental cataclysms, whose e*act natureremains a mystery. It is referred to in geology as the @9 kiloyear event , and it isconsidered as one of the most intense aridification events during the 0olocene period.It occurred around :M $C, ending the Jeolithic "ubpluvial and initiated the mostrecent desiccation of the "ahara desert. )t the same time, between > $C B :?$C, the coastal plains of "umer e*perienced severe flooding, which was the local effectof a worldwide episode of rapid, relatively short4term flooding known as the Glandriantransgression B which had a significant impact not only along the shores of the ulf butin many other parts of )sia as well.# 6


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The famous 'ahabharata !ar of the Indian subcontinent, which took place during thetransitional period between Yugas, :? years prior to the beginning of the Kali Yuga, cannow be dated to :D77 $C. The Mahabharata mentions that the /wapara Yuga endedand the Kali Yuga started as soon as Krishna left this world; and then the seas swelledup and submerged the island4city of /warka, which was located off the coast of western

India. In <


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changes may have been responsible for this shift in lmec centers, with certainimportant rivers changing course.

nce again we don t know what may have triggered this calamitous turn of eventsacross the world. 0istorians speculate about a combination of catastrophic climaticevents. @gyptian accounts tell us that, something in the air prevented much sunlightfrom reaching the ground and also arrested global tree growth for almost two fulldecades until 77> $C.# 6


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Fig %: The Transitional ;erio,s bet'een 0ugas

This recurrent pattern of devastation is clearly discernible in the archaeological records.@very


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civili&ation collapses, as is characteristic of the transitional periods. The /wapara Yugais fundamentally different from the Kali in its spiritual and material dimensions, as canbe gleaned from the ancient te*ts. 0ence, we may anticipate far4reaching changes inour environment, and possibly in our cosmic neighborhood, as we transition to thisperiod of enhanced consciousness. The current upswing in tectonic activities and the

increased incidence of e*treme weather phenomena may be indicative of the fact thatwe are slowly entering into a period of volatile earth changes. !e need to be aware ofthese greater cycles of time that govern human civili&ation, and the changes that arelooming in the hori&on.

Yuga Cycle Timeline

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