Yuga Cycle


A Yuga Cycle is a cyclic age in Hindu cosmology, where eternal time repeats general events. Each cycle repeats four yugas —Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga—lasting for 4,320,000 years or 12,000 divine years.
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. As the cycle progresses, each yuga's length, and humanity's general moral and physical state, decrease by 1/4th. Near the end of Kali Yuga, when virtues are at their worst, a cataclysm and re-establishment of dharma occur to usher in the next cycle's Satya Yuga, prophesied to occur by Kalki. Kali Yuga, which lasts for 432,000 years, is believed to have started in 3102 BCE.
There are 1,000 cycles in a kalpa, which is followed by a night or pralaya of equal length. During a pralaya, everything created by Brahma is unmanifest, including himself, until he is reborn in his next day, starting the Yuga Cycles again.

Lexicology

A Yuga Cycle has several names, where "yuga" is sometimes written in its archaic form of "yug".
Yuga :
Chatur Yuga :
Daiva Yuga,
Deva Yuga,
Divya Yuga :
Maha Yuga :
Yuga Cycle + :

Manusmriti

In the Manusmriti, divisions of time are described from a moment up to Brahma's days and nights, which includes the length of a "" and its four yugas. Included is a method to convert a day/night of the gods to human years. This composition indicates that the four yugas were named by some previous persons, which William Jones translated as Sages.
According to Patrick Olivelle, most scholars take the table of contents to be an addition, but for him, the account of time and cosmology to the aforementioned are out of place redactions. He feels the narrative should have ended when the initial command to "listen" was repeated, then transition to "learn".
Georg Bühler, whose translation has remained the standard for over a century according to Olivelle, translated 1.71 as 12,000 years in a four-aged period, same as Jones's translation, both based on the commentary of Kulluka Bhatta. Medhatithi translated it as 12,000 four-aged periods in an age of the gods. Kulluka and Olivelle reject Medhatithi's interpretation based on 1.79 mentioning 12,000 without a qualifier and must be assumed as years.

Surya Siddhanta

A caturyuga and its four ages are found in the Surya Siddhanta.

European culture

The earliest European writing about human ages is in Works and Days by Hesiod; although, not cyclic and with a fifth "Heroic age" added, according to Joscelyn Godwin, as a compromise with the Trojan War in Greek history. The "Four Ages" are also found in Metamorphoses by Ovid. Godwin says that it is probably from Hindu tradition that knowledge of the ages reached the Greeks and other Indo-European peoples. Godwin points out that the exact length of Kali Yuga shows up in Chaldean, Chinese and Icelandic cultures and is the number of syllables in the Rigveda.

The cycle

One cycle contains four ages in the following order: Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga. As it progresses, each yuga's length, and humanity's general moral and physical state, decrease by 1/4th, giving proportions of 4:3:2:1.
Each yuga is divided into a main period and two Sandhis or ⁠— and or ⁠—where each Sandhi lasts for 1/10th of the main period. Lengths are given in divine or celestial years, where a divine year lasts for 360 solar years. A Yuga Cycle lasts for 4,320,000 solar years:
According to Puranic sources, Krishna's departure marks the end of Dvapara Yuga and the start of Kali Yuga, which is dated to 17/18 February 3102BCE..

Greater cycles

There are 71 Maha Yugas in a Manvantara, the progenitors of mankind. There are 1,000 Maha Yugas in a Kalpa, the creator of planets and first living entities. There are 14 Manvantaras in a Kalpa with a remainder of 25,920,000 years assigned to 15 Sandhyas, each the length of a Satya Yuga. A Kalpa is followed by a night or Pralaya of equal length, forming a full day. A Maha Kalpa lasts for his 100 360-day years or 72,000,000 Maha Yugas, which is followed by a Maha Pralaya of equal length.
We are currently halfway through Brahma's life :.
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:
According to P. V. Kane, one of the earliest inscriptions with one of the four yugas named is the Pikira grant of Pallava Simhavarman:
Other Epigraphs exist with named yugas in the Old Mysore region of India, published in Epigraphia Carnatica.

Yuga avatars

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 the Padma Purana, Rama also appeared in the 27th Yuga Cycle of the 6th Manvantara.

Ganesha

Ganesha avatars are described as coming during specific yugas.

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 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

, in the introduction of his book, The Holy Science, proposed a Yuga Cycle of 24,000 years.
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 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. Yukteswar's yuga lengths for Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali are respectively 4,800, 3,600, 2,400 and 1,200 "human" years.
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 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 . He states that the world entered the Pisces-Virgo Age in 499CE, 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, where Brahma regulates dharma or, as he defined it, mental virtue. Dharma is lowest when farthest from Brahma at the descending-ascending intersection, where the opposite occurs at the "cycle-top" when nearest. At dharma's lowest, 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, who's theory only recently became prominent outside India in this millennium. 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". 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

, in his original 1931 French article which was later translated in the book, Traditional Forms & Cosmic Cycles, proposed a Yuga Cycle of 64,800 years.
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, 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. Using 25,920 and 72, he calculated the sub-multiplier to be 4,320 years. In noticing the "great year" of the Persians and Greeks as almost half the precession, he concluded a "great year" must be 12,960 years. 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, 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. 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.

Alain Daniélou

, in his book, While the Gods Play: Shaiva Oracles and Predictions on the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind, proposed a Yuga Cycle of 60,487 years.
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 Maha Yuga containing 71.42 Manvantaras, each containing 4 yugas . He pegged 3102BCE as the start of Kali Yuga and placed it after the dawn. 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 ends with a catastrophe wiping out mankind.
Godwin found that Daniélou's misunderstanding rests solely on a bad translation of Linga Purana 1.4.7.