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4:57 PM on August 09, 2009
Vipan Thapar's Answer
Vedic and Puranic units of time span from the truti (microsecond) to the mahamantavara (311.04 trillion years). Hindu thOld Indian measures are presently used primarily for religious purposes in Hinduism and Jainism. They also are employed in the teachings of Surat Shabda Yoga.
The Hindu cosmological time cycles are described in verses 11–23 of Chapter 1, Surya Siddhanta [1]:
(Verse 11). That which begins with respirations (prāna) is called real; that which begins with atoms (truti) is unreal. Six respirations make a vinādi, sixty of these a nādi.
(12). And sixty nādis make a sidereal day and night. Of thirty of these sidereal days is composed a month; a civil month (sāvana) consists of as many sunrises.
(13). A lunar month, of as many lunar days (tithi); a solar (sāura) month is determined by the entrance of the sun into a sign of the zodiac; twelve months make a year. This is called a day of the gods.
(14). The day and night of the gods and of the demons are mutually opposed to one another. Six times sixty of them are a year of the gods, and likewise of the demons.
(15). Twelve thousand of these divine years are denominated a chaturyuga (Four Ages); of ten thousand times four hundred and thirty-two solar years.
(16) The difference of the krtayuga and the other yugas, as measured by the difference in the number of the feet of Dharma in each, is as follows :
(17). The tenth part of a chaturyuga, multiplied successively by four, three, two, and one, gives the length of the krta and the other yugas: the sixth part of each belongs to its dawn and twilight.
(18). One and seventy chaturyugas make a (manvantara (Patriarchate of one Manu); at its end is a twilight which has the number of years of a krtayuga, and which is a pralaya (catastrophic end of creation).
(19). In a kalpa (æon) are reckoned fourteen such Manus with their respective twilights; at the commencement of the kalpa is a fifteenth dawn, having the length of a krtayuga.
(20). The kalpa, thus composed of a thousand chaturyugas, and which brings about the destruction of all that exists, is a day of Brahma; his night is of the same length.
(21). His extreme age is a hundred, according to this valuation of a day and a night. The half of his life is past; of the remainder, this is the first kalpa.
(22). And of this kalpa, six Manus are past, with their respective twilights; and of the Patriarch Manu son of Vivasvant, twenty-seven chaturyugas are past;
(23). Of the present, the twenty-eighth chaturyuga, the krtayuga is past; from this point,reckoning up the time, one should compute together the whole number.
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12:33 PM on August 13, 2009
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