Kali Yuga

A particular age of the world in one of
the reckonings of cosmic time.
According to traditional belief, time has
neither beginning nor end, but alternates between cycles of creation and
activity, followed by cessation and quietude. Each of these cycles lasts for 4.32
billion years, with the active phase
known as the Day of Brahma, and the
quiet phase as the Night of Brahma. In
one reckoning of cosmic time, the Day
of Brahma is divided into one thousand
mahayugas (“great cosmic ages”), each
of which lasts for 4.32 million years.
Each mahayuga is composed of four
yugas, the Krta Yuga, Treta Yuga,
Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga. Each of
these four yugas is shorter than its predecessor and ushers in an era more
degenerate and depraved. By the end of
the Kali Yuga, things have gotten so bad
that the only solution is the destruction
and re-creation of the earth, at which
time the next Krta era begins.
Kali Yuga is the last of the four yugas,
lasting for “only” 432,000 years. It is
also considered to be the most
degenerate yuga, symbolized by its
identification with iron—a metal that is
sometimes useful, sometimes harmful,
not particularly precious, and whose
black color is associated with Saturn,
the malevolent planet. Kali Yuga is
considered the time when human
wickedness runs rampant, virtue
virtually disappears, and the world is
inexorably falling into ruin. Hindus
believe that the Kali Yuga began with the
commencement of the great war
described in the epic Mahabharata,
and not surprisingly, it is the age in
which we now live.