Category:Yuga
Theme Analysis
The Vedic science of time describes the cosmic manifestation operating in immense cyclical periods known as yugas. Just as the earth experiences the passing of seasons, the universe transitions through four ages—Satya, Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali—each characterized by a progressive decline in spiritual culture, human lifespan, and memory. However, despite this natural degradation, the Supreme Personality of Godhead mercifully descends in every yuga to reestablish religious principles and reclaim the conditioned souls. By understanding these cycles, one can appreciate the specific spiritual processes prescribed for each age, particularly the supreme efficacy of the saṅkīrtana movement inaugurated by the Lord in the current age of Kali.
- The Science of Cosmic Time: The duration of the material world is governed by massive spans of time calculated according to the lifespans of exalted demigods like Lord Brahmā and Manu, comprising thousands of yuga cycles.
- The Progressive Degradation of Society: As the yugas transition from Satya to Kali, human virtue, memory, and lifespan systematically diminish by ninety percent, giving way to increasing vice, ignorance, and strife.
- The Lord's Appearance in Every Age: Although full in Himself, the Supreme Lord descends in every yuga, adopting specific bodily complexions and forms to demand the surrender of the conditioned souls and protect religious principles.
- The Authorized Process of Religion: Because human capacity changes in each millennium, the prescribed method for spiritual realization changes as well, culminating in the supreme, simple process of chanting the holy names in Kali-yuga.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: The Changing Yugas and the Process of Religion.
Subcategories
This category has the following 8 subcategories, out of 8 total.
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Pages in category "Yuga"
The following 66 pages are in this category, out of 66 total.
3
A
- According to the age, O my Lord, You protect the principles of religion. In the age of Kali, however, You do not assert Yourself as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and therefore You are known as Triyuga, or the Lord who appears in three yugas
- All the kings and other great personalities born in those yugas had now departed from memory into obscurity. This is the way of time as it moves through past, present and future
- Although the Supreme Lord, Krsna, is full in Himself, He appears in different yugas to demand the surrender of the conditioned souls so that they will benefit by becoming free from the material clutches
- An age of Manu, which is the duration of Manu's life, is calculated to last seventy-two yugas. One yuga consists of 4,300,000 years
- As there are seasonal changes within a year, so there are changing ages in the duration of the manifest cosmic world. These changing ages are called yugas, or periods
B
- Because the Lord is not directly perceived in Kali-yuga but is directly known in the other three yugas, His name is Triyuga
- Brahmanas well conversant in Vedic knowledge have given their verdict that in every age (yuga) the conduct of different sections of people according to their material modes of nature is auspicious both in this life and after death
E
- Each Manu lives for seventy-one yugas, each consisting of some 4,320,000 years
- Even during the annihilation of the material world, the process of bhakti-yoga can be applied. The Lord is worshiped in devastation because He protects the Vedas from being annihilated. He is worshiped in every millennium or yuga
F
- Finally in Kali-yuga (the yuga we have now been experiencing over the past 5,000 years) there is an abundance of strife, ignorance, irreligion and vice, true virtue being practically nonexistent, and this yuga lasts 432,000 years. BG 1972 purports
- 4 yugas, rotating a 1000 times, comprise 1 day of Brahma, the creator god, & the same number comprise 1 night. Brahma lives 100 of such "years" & then dies. These "100 years" by earth calculations total to 311 trillion & 40 million earth years. BG 1972 p
I
- In Candi, in the Markandeya Purana, Eleventh Chapter, Mahamaya says, "During the twenty-eighth yuga in the period of Vaivasvata Manu, I shall take birth as the daughter of Yasoda and be known as Vindhyacala-vasini."
- In every day of Brahma there are fourteen manvantaras. The duration of one manvantara, the lifespan of one Manu, is seventy-one yugas, and each yuga is 4,320,000 years
- In every yuga the same thing is there, they forget the Lord and to maintain their body they work very hard day and night
- In every yuga, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, assumes the form of great yogis such as Dattatreya to teach the system of mystic yoga
- In every yuga, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, assumes the form of Siddhas such as Sanaka to preach transcendental knowledge and He assumes the form of great saintly persons such as Yajnavalkya to teach the way of karma
- In Kali-yuga vice increases to such a point that at the termination of the yuga the SG Himself appears as the Kalki avatara, vanquishes the demons, saves His devotees, and commences another Satya-yuga. Then the process is set rolling again. BG 1972 pur
- In the other three yugas - Satya, Treta and Dvapara - people perform different types of spiritual activities. Whatever results they achieve in that way, they can achieve in Kali-yuga simply by chanting the Hare Krsna maha-mantra
- In the other yugas, however, the Lord is a manifest incarnation, and therefore he is addressed as tri-yuga, or the Lord who appears in three yugas
- In the Treta-yuga vice is introduced, and this yuga lasts 1,296,000 years. In the Dvapara-yuga there is an even greater decline in virtue and religion, vice increasing, and this yuga lasts 864,000 years. BG 1972 purports
- In this Age of Kali there is no lila-avatara of the Supreme Personality of Godhead; therefore He is known as Triyuga. That is one of His holy names
- In this age of Kali, the Supreme Personality of Godhead (Bhagavan) does not appear as a lilavatara, an incarnation to display pastimes. Therefore He is known as tri-yuga
- It is said that the KC movement will be prominent within the next ten thousand years, but after that people will all become mlecchas and yavanas. Thus at the end of the yuga, Krsna will appear as the Kalki avatara and kill them without consideration
- It is stated that his (Svayambhuva's) life was very long, seventy-one yugas. One yuga is completed in 4,320,000 years, seventy-one of such yugas is the duration of the life of a Manu, and fourteen such Manus come and go in one day of Brahma
- It is understood that the Lord incarnates in different colors for the different yugas - Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali
O
- One day of Brahma is called a kalpa. A yuga, or maha-yuga, consists of 4,320,000 years, and one thousand such maha-yugas constitute one kalpa
- One Manu lives for a duration of time calculated to be an aggregate of seventy-one yuga cycles, each of which equals 4,300,000 years
- One should understand that although in some yugas some of the colors are prominent, in every yuga, whenever Krsna appears, all the colors are present
- One yuga covers 4,300,000 years. This number multiplied by one thousand is calculated to be twelve hours of Brahma on the planet Brahmaloka
P
- Pariksit Maharaja was eager to hear about the Manus of different ages. There are fourteen Manus during a day of Brahma, and the age of each Manu lasts for seventy-one yugas. Thus there are thousands of Manus during the life of Brahma
- Prahlada said: In the Age of Kali, O Mahapurusa, You sometimes appear in a covered incarnation (Caitanya). Therefore You are known as Tri-yuga - one who appears in only three yugas
S
- Sridhara Svami describes tri-yuga as follows: yuga means "couple," and tri means "three." The Lord is manifested as three couples by His six opulences, or three couples of opulences. In that way He can be addressed as tri-yuga
- Sukadeva Gosvami said: When King Satyavrata spoke in this way, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who at the end of the yuga had assumed the form of a fish to benefit His devotee and enjoy His pastimes in the water of inundation, responded as follows
T
- The devotees pray to Lord Caitanya, to eliminate their stock of passion and ignorance, the most conspicuous assets of this yuga
- The Eleventh Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam describes the incarnations for each yuga in chronological order. The Bhagavatam says, krte suklas catur-bahuh, tretayam rakta-varno'sau, dvapare bhagavan syamah and krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam - SB 11.5.32
- The incarnations such as Matsya, the fish incarnation, appear in different yugas for specific pastimes
- The Lord is the personality of religious principles. In three millenniums religious principles are protected by three kinds of spiritual culture, namely austerity, cleanliness and mercy. The Lord is called tri-yuga in that way also
- The present reign is that of Vaivasvata Manu. According to astronomical calculations, we are now in the twenty-eighth yuga of Vaivasvata Manu. Each Manu lives for seventy-one yugas, and fourteen such Manus rule in one day of Lord Brahma
- The sage (Karabhajana Rsi) was informing Maharaja Nimi (in SB 11.5.36) about the people’s duty to worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead according to different processes in different yugas
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead appears as incarnations in different yugas
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Visnu, is known as Triyuga, which means that He is manifest in three yugas. However, this means that in the Age of Kali the Lord appears not directly but in disguise
- The teachings of Lord Rsabhadeva are for the people of all yugas-Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapara-yuga & especially Kali-yuga. These instructions are so powerful that even in this age of Kali one can attain perfection simply by explaining the instructions
- The transitional periods before and after every millennium, which are a few hundred years as aforementioned, are known as yuga-sandhyas, or the conjunctions of two millenniums, according to the expert astronomers
- The years of the demigods are equal to 360 years of humankind. As will be clarified in the subsequent verses, 12,000 of the demigods' years, including the transitional periods which are called yuga-sandhyas
- There are different interpretations of tri-yuga, but it is accepted by all learned scholars that tri-yuga means Visnu
- There are different yugas, millennium, and there are different processes. In this age, this is the process, kalau sankirtana, hari-kirtanat, simply chanting. Sit down anywhere, everywhere, and go on chanting, chanting, chanting
- There are seasonal changes - in our experience in one year sometimes it is summer, sometimes it is winter, sometimes it is spring - similarly, in course of nature's way there are different yugas, millennium
- Thereafter, at the conjunction of two yugas, the Lord of the creation will take His birth as the Kalki incarnation and become the son of Visnu Yasa. At this time the rulers of the earth will have degenerated into plunderers
- This (that in Kali yuga the Lord appears not directly but in disguise) is confirmed in SB 7.9.38: In the Age of Kali, O Mahapurusa, You sometimes appear in a covered incarnation. Therefore You are known as Triyuga - one who appears in only three yugas
- This is confirmed in Srimad-Bhagavatam (the color of the principal incarnation of the Supreme Lord according to the yuga) by the astrologer Gargamuni, who calculated Krsna's horoscope in the house of Nanda Maharaja
- Twenty-seven catur-yugas have already passed. Those upon whom you may have decided are now gone, and so are their sons, grandsons and other descendants. You cannot even hear about their names
W
- With the change of the yugas, the duration of life and memory, the quality of kindness and all other good qualities diminish
- With the progressive advance of each new yuga, the duration of human life is reduced by ninety percent - from one hundred thousand to ten thousand, from ten thousand to one thousand, and from one thousand to one hundred