The Arctic Home in the Vedas c16.9.3

c16.9.3

Now at the time of the Mahâbhârata or the Code of Manu, the Kali yuga had already set in; and if the yuga contained no more than 1,000, or, including the Sandhyâs, 1200 ordinary years, it would have terminated about the beginning of the Christian era.¹ The writers of the Purâṇas, many of which appear to have been written during the first few centuries of the Christian era, were naturally unwilling to believe that the Kali yuga had passed away, and that they lived in the Krita yuga of a new Mahâ-yuga; for the Krita yuga meant according to them a golden age, while the times in which they lived showed signs of degeneration on all sides. An attempt was, therefore, made to extend the duration of the Kali yuga by converting 1000 (or 1200) ordinary human years thereof into as many divine years, a single divine year, or a year of the gods, being equal to 360 human years. A Vedic authority for such an interpretation was found in the text from the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, which, we have quoted and discussed previously, viz., “That which is a year is a day of the gods.” Manu and Vyâsa simply assign 1000 years to the Kali yuga. But as Manu, immediately after recording the duration of the yugas and their Sandhyâs, observes “that this period of 12,000 years is called the yuga of the gods,” the device of converting the ordinary years of the different yugas into as many divine years was, thereby, at once rendered plausible;