The Vedic Puranas describe the four yugas as follows: Satya-yuga, or the golden age, is the ideal age, characterized by virtue, wisdom, religion, and practically no vice or ignorance. Humans do not hate or envy each other, nor do they ever feel anxious, fearful or threatened. They solely worship the one Supreme Personality of Godhead, hear the one Veda, obey the one law, and practice the one religious process -- meditation on the Supreme. People live for about 100,000 years. In Treta-yuga vice is introduced. The good qualities that humans had in Satya-yuga reduce by one third. People introduce religious rites, sacrifices, and ceremonies. They start to act with fruitive desires, expecting a reward for their work and religious activities. They live for a maximum of 10,000 years. In Dvapara-yuga uprightness is only half of what it was in Satya-yuga. The Vedas are divided into four parts, and only a few people study them. Sensual desires and diseases begin to well up, and injustice spreads in human civilization. People live for a maximum of 1000 years. In Kali-yuga only one fourth of human uprightness remains and gradually reduces to nil as the age progresses. We now live in Kali-yuga, the iron age, the most degraded of the four ages (kali literally means quarrel and hypocrisy). In this age men are short lived and have less intelligence. They are especially lazy in performing their spiritual duties and exceedingly slow to surrender to the Lord. They are misled, frustrated and, above all, always disturbed. The qualities of religion (truthfulness, cleanliness, forbearance and mercy) and the qualities of life (intelligence, duration of life and bodily strength and beauty) all diminish. The maximum duration of human life is 100 years, and even that is rare.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 16:20:50 +0000
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