Concept of Yugas: Interpretations and Clarifications

Description of Chaturyuga in Human years as well as in Divine years as per Manusmriti (1/65-71) is summarised as under:

Yuga	Main Period	Sandhya + Sandhyansh	Total Length
Krita-yuga	4000 years	400 + 400 years	4800 years
Treta-yuga	3000 years	300 + 300 years	3600 years
Dvapara-yuga	2000 years	200 + 200 years	2400 years
Kali-yuga	1000 years	100 + 100 years	1200 years

However, 1 divine year = 360 human years. Hence, total length of every yuga gets multiplied by 360 and we get:

Yuga	Total length
Krita-yuga	1728000 years
Treta-yuga	1296000 years
Dvapara-yuga	864000 years
Kali-yuga	432000 years

Modern historians believe that originally Chaturyuga/Divyayuga was of 12000 human years but was later expanded to 12000 divine years (43 lac 20 thousand years). What could be the justification for applying divine year to the humans?

  In Manusmriti (1/67) it is said: “one full year of men (360 days) makes one day and one night of the Devas. The Northern solstice is their day (180 days) and Southern solistice is their night (180 days)”.  Probably in some remote past this was interpreted in the manner that by multiplying 12000 years of Chaturyuga with 360, duration of Chaturyuga was stated as 43,20,000 years.

  Thus actually a Chaturyuga may comprise only of 12000 years. Also there have to be descending and ascending cycles of Chaturyuga, with some more years in between. This takes us to completion of precession cycle of 25690 years! This view has been held by several Sanskrit scholars, including eminent Sanskrit scholar Medhatithi, Swami Yukteshwar Giri, Sri Sri Ji, jaggi Vasdev Ji, Pandit Bhagwaddutt, Ganguli, Richard thompson. Even Glaceology supports that this might be the seventh such cycle going on.

 

  If we accept the Chaturyuga  cycle of 43,20,000 years, then are we prepared to declare that Kaliyuga consists of 4,32,000, of which 4,27,000 are still left!