What are Yugas, Kalpas and Manvantaras?
We live, the Puranas say, in the Kali Yuga — the fourth and darkest age of a cycle that repeats a thousand times in a single day of Brahma. How long are these ages, and what do they mean?
The verse
Four ages
The Puranas describe four yugas, each shorter and less righteous than the last: Satya (or Krita) Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga. Dharma, often imagined as a bull, stands on four legs in the Satya Yuga, three in the Treta, two in the Dvapara — and one in the Kali Yuga.
How long is an age?
The numbers in the Puranas are astonishing. A single Kali Yuga is said to last 432,000 years — and that is the shortest unit of a cycle so vast that it dwarfs even modern estimates of the universe's age…
The journey continues for members
- The arithmetic of time
- Where are we now?
- Tradition and science
- For life today
Sources
- Bhagavad Gita — 8.17–19
- Vishnu Purana — Book 1.3
- Surya Siddhanta
- Manusmriti — 1.68–73