Cycles Of Time

[dsd108]

Cycles of time

There are four ages (called yugas):

The first lasts 1,728,000 years

The second lasts 1,296,000 years

The third lasts 864,000 years

The fourth lasts 432,000 years (this last age is Kali yuga, our present age beginning 5000 years ago)

Each age sees a decline in virtue (dharma) from the previous. As told in one parable, in the first golden age, dharma stood on four legs like a table, but in the second age it stood only on three, in the third age on two, and now in the present age only on one, thus all but one fourth of the world's virtue has vanished in the present age.

These four ages, as lengthy as they may seem, are only a small part of the great cycle of time:

4 ages = one mahayuga (great age), 4,320,000 yrs, after which creation will rest (return to a state of non-differentiation) for one mahayuga.

1000 mahayugas = one day of Brahma (or one kalpa), 4,320,000,000 years, after which Brahma sleeps and creation rests for one kalpa.

Brahma's lifetime = 100 years of his days and nights: 4.32 billion x 365 x 2 x 100 = 311 trillion yrs, after which Shiva dances, all things including Brahma dissolve and nothing exists for an equivalent time, then it all begins again.

Against such immense scale, one single lifetime becomes insignificant.

[amardeep]

I think that these numbers are wrong according to Sikhi... Yugas change due to social corruption and not due to time..

[Matheen]

They're correct, but of course they're approximate. If the future can be foreseen and predicted, then the lengths of the yugas can be seen too.....

Edited July 26, 2009 by Matheen

[amardeep]

So you belive that Ram Chander lived some millions of years ago? Does'nt this conflict with modern science which says that the human species is only some hundred thousand years old?

Edited July 26, 2009 by amardeep

[Matheen]

That's an estimate, based on the oldest remains they can find. It's also far from being a perfect science. The age of the earth has been calculated to be much higher and bear in mind that everything has been destroyed and recreated many times over. The cycle of 4 jugas has happened many times before. It is also believed that people lived for much longer in Satjug, Treta and Duapar than they do now, which makes a difference in calculating these things.

Edited July 26, 2009 by Matheen

[amardeep]

are you sure that we as sikhs belive in these figures? I thought Kalyug started some years before the coming of Guru Nanak, and then Guru Nanak came in order to establish Dharma again (which is why there are many shabads saying Kalyug has come kalyug has come).. And not that Kalyug had been there for 5000 years and then Guru Nanak came

Edited July 26, 2009 by amardeep

[Matheen]

With those time scales, 5000 years isn't that long, but I'm not 100% certain of how long Kaljug has been running for, or how much is left.

I've heard these (or similar) figures in katha, but don't recall coming across them in Gurbani, so you could be right.

[amardeep]

That is true, but 5000 years is quite many.. Its not even been 5000 years since the birth of Moses and that was ages ago and many many thousand generations