The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c24.29

v1.c24.29

The fourth section, the *manvantara*, deals with the ‘periods of the different Manus.’ These form part of a chronological system which is purely hypothetical. Time, like soul and matter, is a phase of the Supreme Spirit. As Brahmā wakes or sleeps, the universe wakes or sleeps also. Each day and each night of Brahmā is an ‘aeon’ (*kalpa*) and is equivalent to a thousand ‘great ages’ (*mahāyuga*), that is to say, 1000 × 4,320,000 mortal years. During an ‘aeon’ fourteen Manus or ‘fathers of mankind’ appear, each presiding over a period of seventy-one ‘great ages’ with a surplus. Each ‘great age’ is further divided into four ‘ages’ (*yuga*) of progressive deterioration like the golden, silver, brazen, and iron ages of Greek and Roman mythology. These are named, from the numbers on the dice, Kṛita, Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali, and are accordingly supposed to last for periods represented by the proportion 4:3:2:1. We need not follow this subdivision of time down to its ultimate fraction ‘the twinkling of an eye’ (*nimesha*) or dwell on the sectarian zeal which leads some of the Purāṇas to assert that an ‘aeon’ of Brahmā is but ‘the twinkling of an eye’ in the endurance of Çiva or Vishṇu.