In the Indian tradition, the age we live in is called the Kali Yuga. What does that mean? Why is this age said to be “dark,” and is there still hope for us in such an age? In this essay we will look first at how Indian cosmology understands time, and then at one of my favourite stories about the Kali Yuga.
Time Is Not a Line but a Circle
According to Indian thought, the world passes through four great ages, or yugas, one after another: Satya (Kṛta) Yuga, Tretā Yuga, Dvāpara Yuga and the Kali Yuga in which we live. Together the four form a mahāyuga, and the cycle repeats itself, like the waxing and waning of the moon.
Each age is shorter than the one before by a quarter of the Satya Yuga, so their durations follow the ratio 4:3:2:1. According to the Purāṇic reckoning:
- Satya Yuga: 1,728,000 years
- Tretā Yuga: 1,296,000 years
- Dvāpara Yuga: 864,000 years
- Kali Yuga: 432,000 years
According to the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, the Kali Yuga began on the day Kṛṣṇa left this world (12.2.33). The astronomical tradition places this date in 3102 BCE.
The scale grows even larger. A thousand mahāyugas make a single day of Brahmā, the creator (a kalpa, about 4.32 billion years), and his night is just as long. Brahmā’s lifespan is held to be about 311 trillion 40 billion years. Existence is created, sustained and dissolved again within this immense rhythm.
The Four Legs of Dharma
In each age, humanity’s wisdom, lifespan, and physical and spiritual strength gradually decline. This decline is a weakening of dharma, of righteousness and cosmic order.
In the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, dharma is pictured as a bull standing on four legs: tapas (austerity), śauca (purity), dayā (compassion) and satya (truth). In the Satya Yuga the bull stands firmly on all four; in each age it loses one. In the Kali Yuga, dharma tries to stay upright, unsteadily, on a single leg, the leg of truth (1.17.24–25). In the twelfth book of the Bhāgavatam the four legs are listed instead as satya, dayā, tapas and dāna (generosity), and each is said to diminish by a quarter in every age (12.3.18–24).
The sources give different figures for the human lifespan. According to the Manusmṛti, lifespan shortens in each age and falls to a hundred years in the Kali Yuga (1.83); the Bhāgavatam says that towards the end of the age it will fall to twenty or thirty years (12.2.11). It is more meaningful to read these numbers not as historical measurements but as a symbolic language for the decline of human consciousness and virtue.
Kṛṣṇa’s Four Arrows
There is a much-loved folk story about the Kali Yuga. One day the Pāṇḍava brothers (all except Yudhiṣṭhira) asked Kṛṣṇa: “What is the Kali Yuga, and what will happen in it?” Kṛṣṇa smiled and said, “Let me show you what the Kali Yuga will be like.”
He took up a bow, shot four arrows in four directions, and asked the Pāṇḍavas to bring them back. Each brother set off in a different direction to fetch one.
When Arjuna picked up his arrow, he heard a very sweet voice and turned to see where it came from. He saw a cuckoo singing in an enchanting voice while, at the same time, eating the flesh of a dying rabbit.
When Bhīma found his arrow, he was standing beside five wells. Four of them were overflowing with fresh water, but strangely the well in the middle was completely empty.
Nakula found his arrow beside a cow that was about to give birth. After the calf was born, the cow began to lick it clean, but she did not stop. She licked so much that in the end the calf’s skin was torn away.
When Sahadeva went to fetch the arrow that had fallen at the foot of a mountain, he saw a huge boulder rolling down from the summit, smashing rocks and great trees. Yet that enormous boulder was stopped by a tiny plant.
Amazed by what they had witnessed, the brothers asked Kṛṣṇa what these things meant. Kṛṣṇa smiled and explained:
“In the Kali Yuga, religious teachers will have beautiful voices and great learning, but like the cuckoo with the rabbit, they will exploit those devoted to them.”
“In the Kali Yuga, the poor will live among the rich. The wealth of the rich will overflow, but they will not give the poor a single coin, just as the four wells gave not one drop to the empty one.”
“In the Kali Yuga, parents will love their children so much that, like the cow’s love for her calf, that love will spoil them and ruin their lives.”
“In the Kali Yuga, people’s character will decay like the boulder rolling down the mountain, and it will seem that nothing can stop it.”
“But in the end, just as the little plant stopped the great boulder, only remembering the name of God will be able to save a person.”
A Light in the Dark Age
The hope at the end of the story is also stated clearly in scripture. After describing the faults of the Kali Yuga at length, the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam says:
kaler doṣa-nidhe rājann asti hy eko mahān guṇaḥ
kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṃ vrajet
“O King, this age of Kali is an ocean of faults, yet it has one great virtue: simply by chanting the name of Kṛṣṇa, one is freed from attachment and reaches the Supreme.” (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 12.3.51)
Perhaps this is what the Kali Yuga really teaches: however dark the age, a tiny plant can stop a great boulder. A name, a mantra, a single moment of sincere remembrance is sometimes enough to halt a whole descent.