History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.719

v4.c63.t2.719

In the Rock Edicts of Aśoka No. 4 and No. 5 we have at Kalsi and two other places the words 'āva kapam' (yāvat kalpam) and at Girnar the words 'āva saṁvaṭa kapa' which mean 'up to the end of the kalpa' or 'up to the end of the kalpa when the clouds or fires of destruction called saṁvarta will arise’¹⁷⁴⁵. Vide C. I. I. vol. I. pp. 8, 10, 30-33. This indicates that the idea of a *kalpa* (a vast period of time at the end of which the universe would be dissolved) which is part of the theory of the yugas had been developed in the 3rd century B. C. The Junāgadh Inscription of Rudradāman¹⁷⁴⁶ (150 A. D.) refers to ‘wind the velocity of which was as terrible as that at the end of the yuga’. In certain very early inscriptions of Pallava¹⁷⁴⁷ kings (of about the 3rd or 4th century A. D.) they are described as ‘always ready to extricate dharma that had sunk deep owing to the evil effects of the Kali age’. In one of the Gupta Inscriptions dated in the 96th year of the Gupta era (415-16 A. D.) Dhruvaśarman is praised as following the path of righteous conduct which prevailed in Kṛtayuga,¹⁷⁴⁸ while the Chammak copperplate of the Vākāṭaka emperor Pravarasena II also speaks of Kṛtayuga (Gupta Inscriptions No. 55 p. 237 at p. 240). The Talgunda inscription of the early Kadamba king Kākusthavarman refers to Kaliyuga (E. I. vol. VIII p. 34). It is not necessary to adduce passages from inscriptions of a later date. From the above it may be said that the theory of yugas and kalpas had begun to take shape at least in the 4th or 3rd century B. C. and that in the first centuries of the Christian era it had been fully developed. It must have gone through several stages in the course of its development. For example, Brahmagupta (Brāhmasphuṭa-siddhānta XI. 10) states that the theory of yugas, Manus and kalpas set out by Āryabhaṭa was not like that of the smṛtis.