The Wheel of Ages

The ancient Vedic seers looked at time differently than we do. For them, history was not a line pointing toward progress. It was a wheel, turning endlessly through ages of rise and fall.

They called these ages Yugas.

The system appears in the oldest Hindu texts, refined over millennia into a precise cosmological framework. Four ages rotate in sequence, each shorter and darker than the last. Then the cycle resets and begins again.

Satya Yuga comes first. The age of truth. Humans live in harmony with cosmic law. Virtue requires no effort because corruption does not exist. Lifespans stretch across thousands of years. The divine is not hidden but present, accessible to ordinary perception.

Treta Yuga follows. Three quarters of original virtue remains. Righteousness must now be cultivated. Effort is required to maintain what once came naturally. The first cracks appear in the cosmic order.

Dwapara Yuga brings further decline. Half of dharma remains. Disease appears. Conflict becomes common. The connection between humans and the divine grows distant. Rituals and practices emerge to bridge the widening gap.

Finally, Kali Yuga descends. The dark age. Only one quarter of original virtue survives. Truth becomes rare. Hypocrisy flourishes. Lifespans shrink to a century or less. Spiritual knowledge is forgotten or distorted. Materialism dominates.

According to traditional calculations, one complete cycle of four Yugas spans 4.32 million years. This cycle, called a Mahayuga, repeats a thousand times to form a single day of Brahma. Cosmic time operates on scales that dwarf human comprehension.

The precision of these numbers is striking. The Vedic astronomers did not deal in vague poetic metaphors. They calculated. They measured. They built a system of temporal architecture that extended from human heartbeats to the lifespan of universes.

Where did this knowledge come from. How did ancient seers arrive at such specific figures. The texts claim it was revealed, transmitted from higher sources. Modern scholars see mythological elaboration over centuries.

The truth may be more interesting than either explanation allows.