The Mahayuga

So...where really are we in the larger cycle of the Hindu Vedic time wheel?

so… I watched Kalki! Focusing only on the positives: the CGI was absolutely breathtaking, specifically when they depicted the scenes from Mahabharata. Something I had only imagined in my head from childhood was suddenly playing out in front of me. Chills! It got me thinking of the Kalki lore, the Kaliyuga, and the Mahayuga cycle in general.

The Mahayuga according to the Manusmriti
In Hindu texts such as Manusmriti and Vishnu puran, the Mahayuga has been described as a time cycle that progresses with the waning of Dharma. Dharma is a concept of righteousness and compassion, aka, us realizing our true nature as indestructible and infinite beings of creation. The four yugas were structured as follows:

As shown by this arrow, according to the puranas, we are currently in the Kaliyug, and have yet hundreds of thousands of years to go. It seems that the number of years that were relayed to ancient scholars, were interpreted as being “divine years” and a factor of 360 is necessary to be multiplied in order to convert to human years. However this would be contested in the future by powerful yogis (something we will approach in the next section).

Here are some of the ways kaliyug has been described, might I say pretty accurately to the 1900’s/20th century. Note: these texts go back to 2nd/3rd century BCE.

sri-suka uvaca
tatas canu-dinam dharmah
satyam saucam ksama daya
kalena balina rajan
nanksyaty ayur balam smrtih

Religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, duration of life, physical strength and memory will all diminish day by day because of the powerful influence of the age of Kali.

vittam eva kalau nṝṇāḿ
janmācāra-guṇodayaḥ
dharma-nyāya-vyavasthāyāḿ
kāraṇaḿ balam eva hi.

In Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man’s good birth, proper behaviour and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one’s power

triḿśad viḿśati varṣāṇi
paramāyuḥ kalau nṛṇām

The maximum duration of life for human beings in Kali Yuga will become 50 years.

na rakshishyanti manujah
sthavirau pitarav api

Men will no longer protect their elderly parents.

kalau kakinike ‘py arthe
vigrihya tyakta-sauhridah
tyakshyanti ca priyan pranan
hanishyanti svakan api

In Kali-yuga men will develop hatred for each other even over a few coins. Giving up all friendly relations, they will be ready to lose their own lives and kill even their own relatives.

sudrah pratigrahishyanti
tapo-veshopajivinah
dharmam vakshyanty adharma-jna
adhiruhyottamasanam

Uncultured men will accept charity on behalf of the Lord and will earn their livelihood by making a show of austerity and wearing a mendicant’s dress. Those who know nothing about religion will mount a high seat and presume to speak on religious principles.

patim tyakshyanti nirdravyam
bhritya apy akhilottamam
bhrityam vipannam patayah
kaulam gas capayasvinih

Servants will abandon a master who has lost his wealth, even if that master is a saintly person of exemplary character. Masters will abandon an incapacitated servant, even if that servant has been in the family for generations. Cows will be abandoned or killed when they stop giving milk.

Despite all this dark stuff, there is one interesting thing. While the Dharma decreases with each age, the ease of reaching god increases . While in Satyug, one would have to be in penance for years before being graced by their entity of worship to be offered a boon, in Kaligyug merely chanting the name of god can invoke their presence.

kaler dosha-nidhe rajann
asti hy eko maha gunah
kirtanad eva krishnasya
mukta-sangah param vrajet

“Although Kali-yuga is an ocean of faults, there is still one good quality about this age: simply by chanting the names of Krishna/Rama, one can become free from material bondage and be promoted to the transcendental kingdom.” (Source: Srimad Bhagavatam 12.3.51)

The yogis in our recent past who revised this framework

The 1800s, 1900s and 20th century in India was energized with mobilized spirituality. While Shri Yukteshwar Giri (Shri. Y. G hereafter) brought the teachings of the vedic world to the west via his books in english (Eg. The Holy Science), his disciple Paramahansa Yogananda not only followed in his footsteps but also physically brought it to the western world.

In this section we will discuss the Mahayuga concept from The Holy Science. I first stumbled upon this book after The autobiography of a Yogi, in my second year of masters. I was curious about the guru of an already great man (Yogananda). To my surprise, he was a writer too, and an incredible one. I had never seen spiritual/religious concepts of hinduism relayed so comprehensively, with almost a semi-quantitative flair. A scientific framework if you will.

Shri. Y. G, through his extensive practice of Kriya yoga, developed a yogic power that allowed him to not only enter altered states of consciousness at will but also receive downloads of information from what we call a higher source, or creation. This wisdom and the set of practices, intended to help man understand the nature of reality better, were relayed by him to his disciples across the ashrams he taught at. Even to this day, the YSS (Yogananda Satsang Society) offers courses where lessons are delivered to your home for a donation only. As someone who is currently doing these, I recommend it strongly.

While reading The Holy Science, I resonated with many parts. Let’s talk about them.

1. The Yuga Cycle is different from what we have been taught in our texts.
   I learnt this- while reading the preface of the 7th edition of the book (written by Yogananda). At the end, it was dated as “249 Dwapara”:

   

   I froze- surely it couldn’t mean the Dwapara yug? We are 249 years into dwaparyuga?! But doesnt it come before Kaliyuga!? How can we go backwards? I was thinking this way keeping in mind the original Mahayuga diagram (4 sections). As I read further, I realised that the book’s text (AKA the first edition with slight changes over the years) was originally written in 1894 (dated 194 Dwapara). I continued reading.

   Shri. Y.G. began by going over some Vedic Cosmology- specifically how the sun in our solar system, revolves around a larger center termed Vishnunabhi, which happens to be the center of the creative power Brahma. Brahma is the “Universal Magnetism”. The ever ubiquitous, all permeating etheric force that runs this matrix. That whose frequency corresponds to “AUM”. According to Shri. Y.G., this creative power or electromagnetism regulates what we call Dharma (the virtue of righteousness, compassion, our true nature), and when the sun in its revolution is closest to the Vishnunabhi, the dharmik forces are at their maximum (Satyayug). Conversely, Dharma is at its lowest when the sun is furthest away from the center. Each of these halves of a revolution take 12000 years, for a total revolution time of 24000 years. The diagram below reveals to us the struture of the Mahayuga, as overlayed by the distance of sun from the grand center (vishnunabhi). This entire process is otherwise known as the precession of the Autumnal Equinox. The dashed arrow signifies where we currently are.

   

   As expressed poetically in Manu’s Samhita,

   

   Here the twilight periods refer to the shorter windows between Yugas where the energies are waning out of one yuga and into the next.

   Shri Y.G. makes a clear point as he debunks the misconception caused due to the misunderstanding of our texts. The factor of 360, which dramatically increases the duration of each yuga to hundreds of thousands of years, has to be removed.

   

   Apparently, this mistake was introduced into our texts during the rule of Raja Parikshit. When the Mahabharata concluded (marking the end of the descending Dwaparyug), Yudhishtir handed the throne to his son Parikshit. Knowing well that the Kali energy was upon them, him and his wise men sought refuge in the Himalayas. The lack of people well versed in the knowledge of Vedic time, combined with the refusal to acknowledge the start of what was considered the “iron age” or the darkest period of human history; resulted in more years being added to the dwapuryuga instead of Kaliyugas acknowledgment. Down the line, the scholars in order to reconcile the new recorded length of the yugas with scriptures, decided to interpret the years as divine years.

   “Thus, the Sanskrit scholars of Kali Yuga, such a Kullu Bhatta, explained away the discrepancies in their almanacs, saying that the 1,200 years allotted by the ancients for the duration of one Kali Yuga were equal (1,200 x 360) to 432,000 solar years of our earth, and that, in 498, A.D., 3,500 years of this long Kali Yuga had passed away. Thus the mistaken calculation gained firmer ground in Hindu chronology, and today the almanacs used in India state that the present year (1932) is the 5,034th of Kali Yuga, of which 426,966 years still remain.”

A BIG bottom line: for some reason, Hindu text translations have largely been undertaken by people not as well versed in the Vedic contexts (colonial). The study of our texts was originally meant to be under guidance of gurus who understood the implicit meanings, cultural contexts of the time, and metaphorical vs literal distinctions. It was never meant to be translated. The result of our texts being interpreted and translated this way (by people who are often of other faiths, such as Christianity) is a biased piece work approached from an Abrahamic lens, which will always result in some level of distortion. I haven’t even brought up Max Muller, a British agent who was alledgedly employed to mistranslate the Vedas (read his correspondences in the book mentioned below ):

“The Life and Letters of Friedrich Max Müller.” First published in 1902 (London and N.Y.).

1. TO HIS WIFE, OXFORD, December 9, 1867.

“…I feel convinced, though I shall not live to see it, that this edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what that root is, I feel sure, the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3,000 years.”

2. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 55 ST. JOHN STREET, OXFORD, August 25, 1856.

“India is much riper for Christianity than Rome or Greece were at the time of St. Paul. The rotten tree has for some time had artificial supports… For the good of this struggle I should like to lay down my life, or at least to lend my hand to bring about this struggle. Dhulip Singh is much at Court, and is evidently destined to play a political part in India.”

3. TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. OXFORD, December 16, 1868.

   “India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education. Much has been done for education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would hardly be enough… A new national literature may spring up, impregnated with western ideas, yet retaining its native spirit and character… A new national literature will bring with it a new national life, and new moral vigour. As to religion, that will take care of itself. The missionaries have done far more than they themselves seem to be aware of.”

   “The ancient religion of India is doomed, and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?”

   Directly from the book of his letters:

   

   

   Makes me want to gag. Anyway..

While it is unfortunate that most of us have lost touch with our divine language (Sanskrit) as a result of years of being invaded, we can still access works of yogis and gurus who have dedicated their lives to the study and it’s dissemination to the public. The Holy Science is one such book, and I hope you put it on your reading list!

Thanks for reading❤️🪬🧿