History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.770
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.770
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The beliefs that in the dim past there was an ideally perfect society followed by a gradual degeneracy and decline in standards of morals, health and length of life and that the cycle of decline would be followed in the far distant future by a golden age of perfection in morals &c. have been dealt with in H. of Dh. vol. III pp. 885 ff The word '*yuga*' has been shown there as having probably several meanings, viz a short period of time (Ṛg III. 26 3), a cycle of five years and also a long period and a period of thousands of years Prof. Mankad in Poona Orientalist (vol. VI. pp 211-212) assigns as many as ten meanings to the word One cannot agree with him in all that he says. For example, he appears to be wrong when he says that in Śākuntala IV (yugāntaram ārūḍhaḥ savitā) yuga means ¼th of a day; yuga does not, so far as I know, mean ¼th anywhere, it means 'four' in some cases In Śākuntala 'yugāntara &c ' should be taken to mean that 'the sun has come up in the sky as much as the length of a yoke (from the eastern horizon)' That is the sense of 'yuga' in Ṛg X 60 8, X 101 3 and 4. In the Mahābhārata, in Manu and the Purāṇas the theory of *yugas, manvantaras* and *kalpas* has been elaborated at great length The four yugas are named Kṛta, Tretā, Dvāpara and Tiṣya or Kali and concern only Bhārata-varṣa 1081a But it has been shown (at pp 886-890 of the H. of Dh. vol III) that originally these were the names of certain throws of dice in gambling and that from the 4th century B. C.
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(if not earlier) they came to be the designations of the ages of man. The early Gupta inscriptions refer to Kṛtayuga as a cycle of great virtues (as in the Bilsad stone pillar Inscription of Kumāragupta in Gupta Samvat 96 in 'Gupta Inscriptions' p 44, the Chammak copperplate of Vākāṭaka Pravarasena II in 'Gupta Inscriptions' p 237, Pattan plates of Pravarasena II. in E. I. 23 p. 81. The theory of Yugas, Manvantaras and Kalpas is elaborated among ancient works in the Mahābhārata (Vana-parva, chapters 149, 188 and Śāntiparva, chap 69 and 231–232), Manu I. 61–74, 79–86, Viṣṇudharmasūtra chap. 20. 1–21, Viṣṇu-purāṇa 1 3, 6 3, Brahmapurāṇa 5. 229–232, Matsya 142–145, Vāyu chap 21, 22, 57, 58, 100, Kūrma I. chap 51 and 53, Brahmāṇḍa II. 6 and 31–36, III 1, Mārkaṇḍeya 58 64, 66–70, 71–97 (has the longest account of Manvantaras), and by astronomical writers and works such as Āryabhaṭa, Sūryasiddhānta, Brahmagupta, Siddhāntaśiromaṇi. None of these works enables us to furnish a satisfactory explanation about the rise of this system of Kalpas, Manvantaras and Yugas Pargiter (in AIHT p 175) thinks that the division into four ages had a historical basis. That may or may not be so. But what historical explanation can be offered about manvantaras and kalpas is not stated anywhere. The theory of yugas concerned only Bhāratavarṣa as stated in several Purāṇas.
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All these works contain the same general features but there are many divergences in details As the Manusmṛti contains one of the oldest accounts, a summary of its remarks will be first set out First, seven Manus are enumerated viz Svāyambhuva, Svārocisa, Uttama, Tāmasa, Raivata, Cākṣuṣa and Vaivasvata. Then divisions of time from *nimeṣa* are specified (18 *nimeṣa* = Kāṣṭhā, 30 Kāṣṭhās = Kalā, 30 Kalās = Muhūrta, 30 Muhūrtas = ahorātra); it is then said that the human month is the day and night of *pitṛs*, the human year is divine *ahorātra*. Kṛta-yuga extends over 4000¹⁰⁸² years, *sandhyā* (twilight) before it is 400 years, *sandhyāṁśa* after it is 400 years. The three other yugas Tretā, Dvāpara and Kali have respectively 3000, 2000, 1000 years and *sandhyās* and *sandhyāṁśas* together of respectively 600, 400 and 200 years. The four yugas thus come to 12000 years (4800 plus 3600 plus 2400 plus 1200); this is called the yuga of gods (i e this is the *divya* measure) and 1000 of these four come to one day of Brahmā and the same is the extent of the night of Brahmā Seventy-one yugas of 12000 divine years each constitute a manvantara and Manu (I. 80) winds up by saying that manvantaras are numberless¹⁰⁸³ and so are creations and dissolutions It should be noticed that the word Kalpa does not occur in this long enumeration. But in other works than the Manusmṛti e g. Viṣṇupurāṇa (VI. 3. 11-12) fourteen Manvantaras are said to constitute a Kalpa, which is a day of Brahmā.
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As a day of the gods is equal to a human year, the 12000 years that constitute a divine caturyuga are equal to 4320000 human years1083a (12000 × 360) i. e. this is the human (mānuṣa) measure of time.