2 - The Cosmos - Cycles Of Time Flashcards
How is time viewed in Sanskrit literature?
In Sanskrit literature, time is not linear.
Rather, it is cyclical, and it moves through huge revolutions in a creation without beginning or end.
What is a mahaayuga?
A mahaayuga is one of these gigantic cycles that takes 4,320,000 years to complete.
What does a mahaayuga contain?
Contained in this mahaayuga are the four yugas, or ages:
What is the sequence of yugas in a mahaayuga?
A mahaayuga begins with the Krrtayuga, then proceeds through the Tretaayuga and Dvaaparayuga, and then finishes with the Kaliyuga.
Once the Kaliyuga finishes, then the Krrtayuga of the next mahaayuga begins again.
What is a manvantara?
Seventy-one cycles of a mahaayuga make up one manvantara.
Why is a manvantara so called?
A manvantara is named for the Manu, or lawgiver, who presides over each of these enormous spans of time.
What is a kalpa?
Fourteen manvantaras comprise one kalpa
Describe the relationship between kalpa and Brahmaa’s life?
One kalpa is a day of Brahmaa, the Creator.
The creation is then dissolved for an equal period and this constitutes Brahmaa’s night.
There are 360 of such days and nights in Brahmaa’s year and 120 of
these years is his lifetime.
Describe the various time units in Sanskrit literature?
Describe the Krrtayuga.
The Krrtayuga is said to be a time when there is no division of subject and object.
It is a time when people know of the one brahman as a reality.
All people are wise and knowledgeable.
All people practice dharma, or law, fully.
Many peoples of the world have immemorial legends of such an age.
At certain times in history, people have been inspired to live according to the standards of the Krrtayuga.
Hence it has been held as an ideal to which people may aspire.
Describe the Tretaayuga
The seeds of the next age, the Tretaayuga, are sown when people begin to want something for themselves.
There is a fall in the level of dharma from the Krrtayuga
Still, it is a time of greatness and magnificence.
Virtue abounds.
Human life is rich and harmonious.
It is thought that the Raamaayan-a takes place during the Tretaayuga.
Describe Dvaaparayuga
In the Dvaaparayuga, the people are heroes.
However, at this time, the level of dharma drops again from the Tretaayuga, so the good qualities are very definitely mixed with bad.
Great virtues like courage, strength, magnanimity, boldness, and a spirit of adventure are present.
But they are intermixed with dark aspects of selfishness, with greed, cruelty, lust and arrogance.
Both knowledge and power have declined from the Tretaayuga.
What are the distinguishing features of Dvaaparayuga?
What distinguishes this yuga is the heroic mind of people at this time.
They have nothing about them that is trivial or vulgar.
Their minds are set upon great actions and enterprises.
At a word of insult they spring to arms.
At a challenge to their courage or initiative or ingenuity they set earnestly about their task.
They do not complain nor quarrel over petty matters, only over things of consequence like honour and power.
Doubt, timidity, miserliness, gossip – all such small-minded vices were unknown to them.
Demons make worthy adversaries for these heroes, for without a
demonic enemy a hero cannot measure his full stature.
It is inevitable that war is a constant feature of an age of heroes
However a thread of wisdom remains that runs through their lives amidst the passions of adventure and the battlefield.
Hence, the Mahaabhaarata is supposed to take place during the close of the Dvaaparayuga.
Describe the Kaliyuga
It is traditionally said that the Iron Age began on 18 February, 3102 B.C.
Hence, it is thought that we currently live in the Kaliyuga.
The Kaliyuga, with its very low level of dharma, is described in detail in the Mahaabhaarata.
All ordered relations in society, such as family relations, teacher and student, etc., become disordered.
The divine world is forgotten.
People are only interested in wealth and pleasure
There is famine, disease and misery
Kings are corrupt
People have children and die at a very young age.
However, there is one advantage of the Kaliyuga.
Life is so painful that escape is desirable.
A little effort towards liberation goes a long way.
