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Nnhe Kaliyuga Era Is a Hindu Reckoning Beginning at Mean Sunrise, 6.0 A.M., Lanka Or Ujjain Time, on Friday, 18 February, B.C. 3

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Nnhe Kaliyuga Era Is a Hindu Reckoning Beginning at Mean Sunrise, 6.0 A.M., Lanka Or Ujjain Time, on Friday, 18 February, B.C. 3 XIV THE KALIYUGA ERA OF B.C. 3102 BY J. F. FLEET, I.C.S. (Rum), PH.D., C.I.E. nnHE Kaliyuga era is a Hindu reckoning beginning at mean sunrise, 6.0 a.m., Lanka or Ujjain time, on Friday, 18 February, B.C. 3102.1 Its 5013th year will have begun just before the time when these pages come into the hands of readers of this Journal. In consequence of the seeming antiquity of this reckoning, there has been manifested recently in certain quarters a desire to demonstrate that it is a real historical era, founded in Vedic times and actually in use from B.C. 3102. But any such attempt ignores the fact that the reckoning is an invented one, devised by the Hindu astronomers for the purposes of their calculations some thirty-five centuries after that date. And it ignores, not a theory of the present writer or of anyone else, but a position which was clearly established as soon as the Hindu astronomy had been well explored, and was fully recognized at least half a century ago.2 There is, however, this to be said ; that the state- ments of the fact are mostly confined to writings which are not often consulted or even seen now, except by specialists who are concerned more with the study of the Hindu astronomy than with that of the calendar and the eras and other reckonings. 1 It may be useful to note that in terms of the Julian Period beginning with Monday, 1 January, B.C. 4713, and regarded as having its days running for Indian purposes from sunrise (instead of the preceding midnight), the first civil day of the Kaliyuga era, the Friday mentioned above, is the day 588,467 current, or, as it is taken for purposes of calculation, the day 588,466 elapsed. a As, for instance, by Whitney in his notes below E. Burgess's trans- lation of the Surya-Siddhanta, published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 6 (1860), pp. 145-498. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University Library Frankfurt, on 14 Feb 2018 at 20:27:14, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00041563 480 THE KALIYUGA ERA OF B.C. 3102 In these circumstances, the present article is given in order to bring the matter into an easily accessible publication, and to show, without entering into the complex question of the antiquity of the Vedas and the various topics connected therewith, the real nature of this reckoning and the circumstances in which it was established. Also, taking the matter farther, to show the leading part which the reckoning has in the Hindu system of cosmical periods, and the extent of its connexion with historical chronology, legendary and real. The Kaliyuga or Kali age is the Hindu Iron Age. It is the last and worst in each cycle of the Four Ages in the Hindu system of cosmical periods. Nevertheless, it is intrinsically the most important item in the whole scheme, since, as will be seen, the beginning of it is the pivot of the entire system. Each cycle of the Four Ages, called sometimes Chaturyuga, ' the four ages', sometimes Mahayuga, ' the great age', sometimes simply Yuga, ' the age', has the duration of 4,320,000 solar years or, as some of the books explain, years of men ; that is, years beginning at the Hindu nominal vernal equinox, and measuring 12 minutes and a few seconds more than 365^ days. According to the view now prevailing, which is traced back to the time of Brahmagupta (wrote A.D. 628), each Chaturyuga is divided in the descending scale of 4, 3, 2, and 1 tenths, into the Krita or Golden Age of 1,728,000 years, the Treta or Silver Age of 1,296,000 years, the Dvapara or Brazen Age of 864,000 years, and the Kali or Iron Age of 432,000 years.1 Each age opens with a ' dawn' and 1 As regards the method of stating the lengths of the ages, Brahma- gupta {ed. Sudhakara Dvivedi, p. 3, verses 7, 8) first gives the length of the Chaturyuga, 4,320,000 years, which, he says, comprises "the four, the Krita and the others, with dawns and twilights." He then takes Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University Library Frankfurt, on 14 Feb 2018 at 20:27:14, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00041563 THE KAL1YUGA ERA OF B.C. 3102 481 closes with a ' twilight', each of which measures one- twelfth of the whole period assigned to the age, and is included in that period; so that what we may call the full daytime of the age lasts for ten-twelfths of that period:x and it is from this point of view that the Kali age is sometimes mentioned as measuring 360,000 years.2 The divisions of the Chaturyuga on these lines are shown on p. 483 below. And the table shows also the con- stitution of the cycle on the principle of ' divine years', the basis of which is the idea that one year of men is a day of the gods, and 360 such days are one divine year. the tenth part of that, viz. 432,000 years: and he multiplies this latter figure by 4, 3, 2, and 1. A different course is taken by Lalla, an early exponent of Aryabhata, who may or may not have come before Brahmagupta. He differs from his master regarding the divisions of the Chaturyuga (for Aryabhata's arrangement of this matter see p. 486 below), and agrees with Brahma- gupta, but fixes the lengths of them by other means. He takes the orbit of the moon, 216,000 yojanas, as stated by Aryabhata on the assumption that the moon is at such a distance from the earth that one minute of arc along her orbit round the earth measures ten yojanas ; and he gets the figures for the ages by multiplying this figure by 8, 6, 4, and 2 : see his Sishyadhivriddhida, ed. Sudhakara Dvivedi, p. 3, verse 14, with p. 27 f., verses 2, 3 (there are rather serious mistakes in some of the explanatory figures interpolated by the editor here). 1 I follow Whitney and other scholars in using the terms ' dawn ' and ' twilight '. The original texts sometimes discriminate by presenting xayhdhyd where the term ' dawn ' has been adopted, and sarhdhydthsa where ' twilight' is used. But in other places they use the term narhdhyd in both senses, and also another term, samdhi, which, however, is perhaps used more specially in connexion with the Manvantaras, to which we shall come next. The term samdhyd, lit. ' a holding together, union, junction ', occurs freely in literature in the sense of both the morning and the evening twilight. Samdhydrhsa, lit. ' a portion of mrhdhyd', seems to have been selected simply in order to obtain, for the purpose of the ages, samdhyd in the sense of the opening ' twilight', and another term for the closing one. Sarhdhi, lit. 'junction, connexion, place or point of contact', appears also to occur in the sense of ' twilight', both of the morning and of the evening. But the sarhdhis are not parts of the Manvantaras, as the sarhdhyds and sarhdhydriisas are of the Ages; and the idea seems to be more that of ' a junction-period', and to be better taken in this way: see, further, p. 482 below, and note 2. 2 For instance, in the Vishnu-Purdna, 4. 24. 41 : trans., vol. 4, p. 236. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University Library Frankfurt, on 14 Feb 2018 at 20:27:14, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00041563 482 THE KALIYUGA ERA OF B.C. 3102 Such are the divisions of the Yuga, Mahayuga, or Chaturyuga. In the other direction, 71 Chaturyugas constitute a Manvantara, ' the period of a Manu or patriarch': and during each Manvantara the Four Ages run on, in cycle after cycle, without any break; the ' twilight' of one age gliding straight into the ' dawn' of its successor, and the events proper to each age beginning at once to repeat themselves. There are 14 Manvantaras, each presided over by a different Manu, who is the progenitor and protector of the human race of his period: and the first of them is preceded by a 'junction-period',1 of the same length with a Krita age, which seems to be the time that was originally allotted for the process of creation, before the Surya-Siddhdnla found reasons for greatly lengthening that time ; and each of them is followed by a ' junction-period' of the same duration, which appears to be a time of abeyance of existence.2 The 14 Manvantaras, with the 15 'junction-periods', constitute a Kalpa or aeon, which thus measures 1000 Chaturyugas or 10,000 Kaliyugas. The Kalpa is the daytime of a day of the god Brahman; and his night is of the same length.3 At the end of the daytime of a day of Brahman everything is destroyed: during his night a state of chaos prevails: and then creation is renewed by him. This process of creation and destruction alternates during the whole life of Brahman, 1 The term is samdhi, regarding which see note 1 on p. 481 above.
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