The Cyclic Character of Hindu Chronology

A very unique thing about this chronology is that it revolves in cycles. Each maha-yuga is composed of four yugas, and these are ever the same series and of the same character. We pass on through the long vista of Kritha, Tretha, Dwapara, and Kali only to begin once more on the same series; and thus forever we move in this four-arc circle without ever getting outside of it. It is claimed that this cycle of yugas has already revolved about twenty million times and will go on spinning twenty million times more, attaining nothing and going nowhere. It is enough to make one dizzy to think of this mighty chronological wheel, spending 4,320,000 years for every one of its forty million revolutions, with nothing to vary the monotony of these ever recurring epochs!

The first question which one would naturally ask, after assuming the truth of this breathlessly long system, is whether it could forever return upon itself after this fashion. Is there no progress in time? Is it true, in this sense also, that "there is nothing new under the sun"? While other people are refreshed by the sense that they are moving forward and upward in the fulfilment of some great destiny, are ever adding new increments to their wisdom, and are rising higher upon "their dead selves" to ever nobler achievements, is it right that the people of this great land should be doomed to think that there is no permanent advance for India, but that she alone must forever return whence she started and repeat the weary cycle of the past?

As a matter of fact, no people can be thus tied down to any mechanical order of time. Every race and nation is either making for progress or for degeneracy. It will never return to its old moorings. The past has told upon it. It has accumulated some wealth of knowledge, of experience, of character, which, as the centuries roll, brings it farther on in its career. It is true that a nation, like a man, may have lapses by which it may fall down a step or more in the ladder of its upward progress. But this cannot be a necessity of its nature or a relentless law of its being.

This chronological system also accounts for much of the pessimism that pervades the minds and depresses the heart of the people of India to-day. It is everywhere claimed that the best things of India were found in the remote past. But, you ask, will not the Sattia yuga—the golden age—return again? Oh, yes, it is next in the procession, we are told. But we must not forget that there are about 427,000 long years before this Kali yuga comes to an end. Even supposing that the doctrine of transmigration is true, and that the soul of man must pass through many reincarnations; who can be expected to hold on to courage and hope through nearly half a million years of dreary existence? What India sorely needs to-day is a conviction that she is moving onward—that there is but one yuga in her calendar, and that that is the yuga of opportunity to rise to higher things. Thus alone can she be stimulated to her best efforts and most worthy activity.

In this connection we must not forget another aspect of these changing and ever recurring ages of the puranas. Each yuga, maha-yuga, and karpa is followed by a period of more or less complete destruction. The achievements of each period are forgotten, because its results are obliterated or consumed by a mighty cataclysm. And thus no gain acquired in any past age is available for the coming epoch. In this way, the whole idea of the puranic chronology is the most effective ever devised by man in any land to bring discouragement and despair into the heart of the people who live under it. Whether we look at the absurd length, the discouraging cycles, or the destructive cataclysms which are an essential part of the system, one and all bring in their train depression, stagnation, and the spirit of reckless waste. While we recognize that this chronology is a natural product of the dreamy, patient soul of the East, the most important fact for us to remember is that it also perpetuates and accentuates the very evil which gave it birth.