Cosmic Time

In traditional Indian cosmology, time
has neither beginning nor end. Instead
it proceeds in unceasing cyclic alternations between creation and activity, followed by cessation and quietude. The
universe thus has neither an ultimate
beginning nor an ultimate end—creation will always be followed by destruction and then destruction by a new
creation. Within the confines of this
assumption, there are several different
and sometimes competing systems for
measuring cosmic time.
The largest generally accepted
measure of time, spanning 4.32 billion
years, is the kalpa, or day of Brahma.
This is the ultimate limit for the
existence of the created world, although
within this period the universe
undergoes periodic renewals. At the
conclusion of the day of Brahma comes
the universal dissolution (pralaya), in
which the universe is completely
destroyed and reabsorbed into the god
Vishnu. The day of Brahma is followed
by a night of equal length, during which
the only living thing is Vishnu; the god
sleeps on the back of his serpent couch,
Shesha, which floats on the surface of
the cosmic ocean. When the night of
Brahma is ended, a lotus sprouts from
Vishnu’s navel. This lotus opens to
reveal the god Brahma, who takes up
the work of creation, and the cycle of
activity begins anew. Because of his
spontaneous appearance at the beginning of every cosmic age, one of the
names for Brahma is Svayambhu (“selfborn”). Unlike the Judeo-Christian concept of creation, Brahma does not create
the world from nothing but merely
arranges and fashions existing elements
into a coherent and ordered cosmos.
The day of Brahma is broken up into
smaller units according to various systems. By far the most common system is
that of the four yugas, or cosmic ages.
According to this idea, the day of
155
Cosmic Time
Brahma is made up of one thousand
mahayugas (“great cosmic ages”), each
of which lasts for 4.32 million years.
Each mahayuga is composed of four
constituent yugas, named the Krta
yuga, Treta yuga, Dvapara yuga, and
Kali yuga. Each of these is shorter than
its predecessor and ushers in an era
more degenerate and depraved. The
passage of the four yugas begins with a
time of sudden and dramatic renewal at
the onset of the krta yuga, followed by a
steady and persistent decline. Although
the kali yuga is the shortest of the four
ages, it is also the time of the greatest
wickedness and depravity, in which any
evil is possible. It is also, not surprisingly,
considered to be the period in which we
are now living. By the end of the kali
yuga, things have gotten so bad that the
only solution is the destruction and
recreation of the earth, at which time
the next krta era begins. Even though
the kali yuga is the shortest age, it still
lasts for 432,000 years, and the preceding yugas are two, three, and four times
the length of the kali age. The increasing
degeneracy of each of the four yugas is
symbolized by the metals associated
with them: gold (krta), silver (dvapara),
bronze (treta) and iron (kali). Another
indication is the status of human beings,
who are said to become shorter, more
wicked, and shorter-lived in each succeeding age. The paradigm of the four
yugas leaves little room in traditional
Hinduism for the notion of progress,
since according to this system, things
will never be better than they
have already been. It idealizes a lost
and unattainable past rather than a
utopian future.
An alternate system of measuring
cosmic time connects the human and
the divine calendars, with one human
year equal to a single day for the gods.
The six months when the sun travels
toward the north (uttarayana) is the
divine day, whereas the six months
when it travels south (dakshinayana) is
the divine night. Since an Indian solar
year is 360 solar days, a divine year
would thus last for 360 human years.
The life span of Brahma is one hundred
divine years and thus 36,000 human
years, after which the world is destroyed
and created anew.
A third system is that of the
Manvantaras, or ages of Manu. This system divides the day of Brahma into
fourteen equal ages, with each one lasting a little less than 309,000 years. Each
age is identified by the particular divine
sovereign (manu) who rules during that
age. None of these three systems correspond to one another, and there is no
real effort to reconcile them. This lack of
correspondence indicates that their
function was primarily mythic, to
establish a coherent cosmic chronology
and pattern rather than to describe
actual events.