Yuga & Maha Yuga

Skt., yuga, mahayuga

Indian cosmology divides time into several long periods variously known as yuga (4 "ages" of varying length), mahayuga (the combined span of these four yugas) and kalpa (a period of 1000 mahayugas).

A kalpa, regarded as measuring only one single day in the life of the god Brahma, consists of 4,320,000,000 years (4 billion and 320 million) as they are counted among the mortals of planet earth. Dividing this number by a thousand, one arrives at the number 4,320,000 years, or one Great Yuga (Skt., mahayuga) comprising the four yugas with the names and durations as given in the table below.

According to this theory, each yuga is 25% less righteous than the previous one; and our present time and lives unfold within the last of these four: the most dark, degenerated, and defiled one of ages. This Kali Yuga, named after the goddess Kali, began in 3102 BCE, around the time that humanity invented writing, and has an expected duration of 432.000 years. Then, according to that tradition, the world will end in the coming dissolution by fire, known as mahapralaya and represented by Dhumavati (Skt., Smoky One); goddess of the final destruction.

This Sanskrit term, from great (Skt., maha) and dissolution (Skt., pralaya), hints at the eventual breakdown of the universe and death of all its inhabitants - more or less anvisioned as a collapse into a black hole from which, with a big bang, a new one will arise destined to go through the same cycles of becoming and being and dissolving once more.

From a mathematical/numerological point of view it is interesting that all the durations shown below are based on multiplying the number 72,000 by 6, 12, 18 and 24

name	concept	Skt.	Tib.	earth-years
Krita Yuga Satya Yuga	Golden Age Ideal Age	krta satya		1,728,000
Treta Yuga	Age of Sacrifices	treta		1,296,000
Dvapara Yuga	Age of Decline	dvapara		864,000
Kali Yuga	Dark Age	kali	snyigs-ma'i-dus	432,000