History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.733

v4.c63.t2.733

The dates of the composition of the Purāṇas not being beyond controversy, it would be difficult to point to a particular period as the time when the full-fledged theory of the yugas was developed. But this much can be stated with certainty that by the 4th century A. D. at the latest the theory had been completely developed. Āryabhaṭa¹⁷⁵⁵ (in Kālakriyāpāda 10) states that when three *pādas* of the yuga (i. e. Kṛta, Tretā and Dvāpara) and 3600 years more had elapsed, he was 23 years old i. e. (accepting the calculations current at present) in 499 A. D. Āryabhaṭa was 23 years old and so was born in 476 A. D. In his Pañcasiddhāntikā Varāhamihira¹⁷⁵⁶ (505 to 587 A. D.) summarises the data of several astronomical Siddhāntas of which Romaka is one, about which Brahmagupta remarks that the Romaka siddhānta is outside the pale of smṛtis because¹⁷⁵⁷ it omits all mention of yugas, manvantaras and kalpas that have been regarded by the smṛtis as useful in measuring time. Kālidāsa¹⁷⁵⁸ in Raghuvamśa 15. 96 speaks of dharma as having only three feet (in Tretā) when Rāma made up his mind to depart from this world. No scholar will assign to Kālidāsa a date later than the middle of the 5th century A. D. Therefore the theory of yugas must be deemed to have been perfected long before 400 A. D. K. P. Jayaswal holds that the Yugapurāṇa chapter of the Garga-saṁhitā was composed about 50 B. C. (J. B. O. R. S. vol. 14 p. 399) and he is probably right.