Comprehending Puranic time scales within the Hindu scriptures
Carl Sagan, the late American cosmologist and presenter once said Hinduism "...is the only one
of the world's greatest faiths dedicated to the idea that the cosmos itself undergoes an immense
indeed an infinite number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales
correspond with those of modern scientific cosmology..." Their time scales are indeed vast.
However in other ways they are very different to the modern understanding. So will you take
the blue pill or will you take the red pill? The red? Great let's go on, but be prepared to
see time and history in a very different way and later on be prepared to feel well... rather small.
Events and pastimes occur in the spiritual world but they are beyond the laws of physics of the
material world. In reality there is no kala (time) that includes a beginning and an end.
Kala is only a feature of the dream-like material world. So let's close in on the material world,
the realm where Kala applies. (A corner of the eternal spiritual reality, Mahavishnu lying in
the Mahat-tattva. Now by earthly calculation each breath of Maha Vishnu lasts for 311 trillion 40
billion years. That seems long to us for sure, but it is the beginning of temporary time. But what is
the definition of time anyway? Well according to Wikipedia it says time is a "component of
quantity of various measurements used to sequence events to compare the duration of events or the
intervals between them and to quantify rates of change of quality quantities in material reality
or in the conscious experience..." So let's go from the macrocosm now to the microcosm,
and the books and translations of the works of A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, particularly the
Third Canto Chapter 11 'calculation of time from the atom': So we're looking now at atomic time.
Bhagavatam 3.11.4 reads 'atomic time is measured according to its covering a particular atomic
space'. Prabhupada's purport: "Time and space are two qualitative terms.
Time is measured in terms of its covering a certain space of atoms. Time covered by the
sun in passing over an atom is calculated as atomic time." Here's some Vedic definitions:
Parama-mahan: the indivisible particles that make up a single atom. Param-anu: one atom has a time
value of a millionth of a second. Anu: two atoms which of course is the smallest possible molecule.
Bhagavatam 3.11.5 "The division of gross time is calculated as follows:
Two atoms make one double atom and three double atoms make one hexatom.
Purport "when six such atoms combine together they're called a trasarenu,
and this is visible in the sunshine pouring for the holes of a window screen". Bhagatam
3.11.6 purport: A Truti is the time occupied in the integration of 18 atomic particles.
A Truti is about 1,687 and a halfth of a second. Today only high tech laboratories
have a use for such small measurements, yet they were known by ancient sages.
This here this horizontal green thing you see across the screen:
It represents a hundredth of a second. A Truti looks like that..tiny.
Expanding time just slightly here relatively. A vedha is 16.8th of a second. A lava and a nimesa:
just just over just slightly over half a second it's worth, and ksana which is about 1.6 seconds.
A kastha, eight seconds. A laghu, two minutes, a danda 30 minutes, a prahara three hours, A paksa,
15 days. One maasa is about a month. One ruthu is a season of usually about two months.
One varsha a year literally meaning between the rainy seasons. Now let's look at cyclic time:
Now most people imagine time as something linear with a definable beginning middle and end.
That principle is even applied to theories of the origin of the human species
and even our possible future. But this is where the Vedas / Puranas differ.
This of course is not correct. Time rather is described as a cycle, just like nature itself
is governed by cycles. In fact the earth as a whole has its own cycles and there
are cycles within cycles within cycles. There are cycles that apply in the Vedas across this
universe. The smallest cycle that affects many planets simultaneously is known as a Maha Yuga.
It's a 4.32 million year cycle of four yugas. 4.3 million earth years and as it goes on from
the beginning of the Satyayuga there's a decline of austerity, mercy, cleanliness
and truth in the human population. At the end of the Kaliyuga there's a replenishment and
so the Satyayuga starts again. Let's look at some of the qualities of those yugas. In the Satyayuga,
divine and demoniac mentalities don't occupy the same planets but rather different parts of the
universe. In the Satyayuga thankfully the earth is on the side of the good guys, the demigods.
The avatar of the Satyayuga. One such is Lord Nrsimhadeva. Some of the great sages and others
of the population can live for a hundred thousand earth years and the process of self-realization
unsurprisingly is deep meditation. In the Treta yuga, the divine and demoniac people can live on
the same planet, born in different countries. The avatar for the Treta Yuga is the Lord Rama
and again some of the great mystic yogis and so forth can live up to
ten thousand earth years and the process of self-realization is elaborate sacrifices.
Now in the Dvarpa Yuga, divine and demonic mentalities can appear in the same family.
Lord Krishna appears towards the end of this Dvarpa yuga.
Great personalities live up to about maybe a thousand up to about a thousand years and the
process for them is elaborate temple and deity worship now. For the final part we're in now, the
divine demonic mentalities can appear well within the same person at any minute.
The avatar for this Kali Yuga is Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu
and people live up to well about 100 years if they're lucky. And the process for the age
of Kali is the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra especially Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.
Closing in here: let's have a look at the Kali-yuga part here,
closing in even further let's look at the beginning section of the Kali Yuga. That's
it going in... so at the end of the Dvarpa Yuga we have of course the description of the Mahabharat:
Bheesma, Dronacarya and so on and so forth all these different characters. But then let's have
a look now at just the where we are now actually just the beginning stages of the kali yuga
looking at some recognizable history. So the Mahabharata essentially ended about 3102 BCE
at least the end of the battle etc look at the the Egyptian empire
time of the Greeks the Romans and the European Renaissance and the time of exploration
and the modern day today. I'll explain the colors of this in a minute.
This kind of green or this yellow is what we call now a Golden Age. Let me explain, let's focus in
first of all let's look at some spiritual teachers along this timeline. Here's Lord Buddha,
Lord Jesus Christ, Shankaracharya, Madhvacharya, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and I'm also going to
mention A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami here. And this is the Golden Age. So the Golden Age actually
actually kind of technically started with the advent of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu
but we're kind of now in a stage of transition because I wouldn't necessarily describe
this age as particularly golden where we are now.
But we're in a transitional stage where spiritual life is certainly available
and of course the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. Let's close in a little bit more perhaps.
Around 1486 the birth of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Srila Prabhupada's mission to bring the holy
name around the world was in about started around 1966. However we still got a little bit more way
to go to start the Golden Age properly but we are in a stage of transition. Let's look at that this
darker red line representing the materialistic attitude of the world which will gradually reduce
and spirituality will gradually take over. So when the Golden Age begins in earnest that will be when
spirituality will become larger factor in life generally around the world than the materialistic
one, and then the Golden Age will surely take off. It will last for about ten thousand years
but then after that - - the Kaliyuga really takes hold: there'll be ongoing spiritual decline.
Looking again at the the Yuga cycle as a whole:
the demigods come at the end of the Kalyuga when things get really bad and the demigods
come to replenish it. As mentioned and then a new cycle begins again with the Satya yuga,
but interestingly enough all the other yuga cycles actually have the Treta and Dvarpa in a
slightly different sequence, so this is unusual in that sense. And there are many yuga cycles
in fact at the moment we're in the 28th. I'll explain that in a moment. Jiva Goswami wrote
that Valmika's account of the Ramayan took place during the 24th yuga cycle of this manvantara. We
are now in the 28th yuga cycle as I mentioned. So we're here and in the Treta Yuga which was in the
third age. Lord Rama would have been there which is about seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty
three thousand 17,253 thousand (sorry)... 17, 253,000 years ago. That's a very very long time
ago but some other people would say well place Lord Rama at the end of the Treta yuga of this
cycle, meaning maybe about 800,000 odd years ago. But of course avatars can come more than once.
Backing off here, you can see where we are according to this time scale. The last time
large dinosaurs roamed this planet wasvabout 65 million years ago there's a T-Rex there. I'm just
showing you how the Vedic and the kind of modern time scales of understanding of history coincide
or could potentially coincide. Now one manvantara is 71 maha yuga cycles, the life of one Manu
And at the beginning of the end of each manvantara of 71 Yuga-cycles
there's a partial devastation which often involves avatars of Vishnu.
One day of Lord Brahma is 14 manvantaras which all together is 4.32 billion years long.
Let's have a look at that close in. Let's look at the first half of this day of Lord Brahma
the first manvantara of this day of Brahma.
Kadama Muni and Devahuti were there and it's also the white incarnation of Vraha, who picked up the
earth from the bottom of the Garbhodakasayi Ocean. In the Uttama Manu was Maharaja Priyavata who
created or divided the earth and the solar system as we recognized it today. In the
Caksusa Manu, the previous Manu is the red incarnation of Varaha who had a fight
and defeated of course Hiranyaksha and at the end of the Caksusa Manu is Matysa the fish
incarnation. And we are presently in the Visvavata Manu which is well about we're about there now.
Lord Brahma's time scale this is really fascinating as we know that Kalpa is 4.32
billion earth years long. This yellow line here represents his day and the darker lines his night.
The modern estimated age of the earth is about 4.5 billion years so how would we
put the two together here? um Compare a night of Lord Brahma, a day and look at the history of the
earth according to the modern understanding. It'll be a bit like that. It's interestingly the earth
as we'd recognize it today would indeed correspond with the beginning of the daytime of Lord
Brahma. The night time however the previous night of Lord Brahma where the earth would certainly be
in a primordial state. Going back: days and nights of Lord Brahma so we're back we just
see about three or four days and nights here of Lord Brahma so just his day there but also his
nights are also 4.32 billion years long. And just like us days and nights go consecutively
through Lord Brahma's nights. Planets up to Svargaloka are inundated with water. At that
point planets become uninhabitable or primordial rather. Now Brahma was born in his 'March' i.e the
relative springtime. He is after all the creator. The prabhasakanda of the Skanda Purana lists the
names of every day of Lord Brahma this month (so-called month) The first day listed is Sveta
Kalpa. We are in the kalpa called Samadh, the 17th day of this month of 'September'.
That means he is now 50 years 6 months 17.39 of his days old. But others say he's just over 50
and a half a day. This means Lord Brahma and therefore this universe is currently about
157 trillion 400 billion earth years old now. From Lord Brahma's relative point of view here though
he lives for just a hundred of his years experience on his planet but
therefore Lord Brahma will live for 311 trillion 40 billion of his years. And as mentioned before,
that's just one breath of Maha Vishnu. Looking at relative time across the populated Vedic universe:
Here's a man experiencing on the earth experiencing about for example eight seconds.
Now most animals perceive time at a finer resolution than humans. That's because they
process sensory information at a faster rate, so here's an animal here typical random animal there.
I think that's a chameleon. So his eight seconds appears longer, he can do more in eight seconds.
Movements and events appear to unfold more slowly to them. It's all relative. If you look at
something like a fly... a fly can do a hell of a lot in eight seconds that's why they move so fast.
To a fly we move very slow. Now let's go in the reverse direction: A demigod for example - eight
seconds will be much less to be experienced by the demigod. What to speak of Lord Brahma...eight
seconds will be well...can hardly know what it is. He would blink an eye and thousands of years
would go by on his planet, on our planet compared to his rather. This is because his subtle forms
come created first from the top of the Vedic universe and then later gross forms are created
and subtle and gross experience time differently. And accordingly 14 divisions of humanoid populated
planets across the universe graded vertically according to time as well as consciousness.
Let's have a look another way of looking at it: Humankind there in the middle
of the earth it's including both subtle and gross elements. We're influenced by both but as we go
up towards the planet of Lord Brahma there's an increase of subtle matter. As we go down towards
the atoms there and there's an increase of gross matter and thus time is experienced differently.
Here's an example of relative time: five minutes in heaven equals eg five years on earth, and
equals ten thousand years in hell. That's a long time but hopefully it's not that long.
Here's another example here of relative time: So the time on one planet passes at a different rate
to another. Here's the earth time going by whereas this other planet, perhaps a more heavenly one,
things are going well quite differently. And here's a very good example here:
remember 4.32 billion years on the earth is equal to simply to one day of Lord Brahma.
So thank you very much indeed. I know it's a lot to absorb... but you DID take the red bill
didn't you? So thank you very much for watching. Take care and feel welcome, and stay in touch.