The Hindu Time Scale (Cosmology)

Before performing any puja or Yaaga, the hindu priest chants some hymns called SANKALPA. Basically Sankalpa is a kind of record of what is being performed with finer details of going down to the day and location of the ritual. It goes something like this:

 “dviteeya parardhe, Svetavaraha kalpe, Vaivaswatha manvantare, Ashta Vimsati tame, Kaliyuge, Prathame Padhe, Jamboodveepe, Bharata Varshe, Bharata Kande, Sakhabde Mero, Dakshine Parsve, Asmin Varthamane Vyavaharike, Prabhavadi Shasti Samvatsaranam Madya, Nama Samvatsare, ……Ayane, ....Ritou, ....Mase, ....Pakshe, ....Subha Thithou, ....Vasara Yuktayam, ....Nakshatra Yuktayam”

Most of us would have heard these verses but paid little attention to it. I too was wondering all these years to know about these. Recently I understood the meaning of this and quite amazed after knowing the details. It actually gives the total years passed so far after the creation of the Universe. Actually it details a complex time calculation according to Hindu faith. Let me first give word to word meaning of the above verse

dviteeya parardhe - in the 2nd half of Brhama's life
Svetavaraha kalpe - in the kalpa of Sveta-Varaha
Vaivaswatha manvantare - in the reining period of the current manu Vaivaswatha
Ashta Vimsati tame - in the 28th mahayuga of the current manavantara
Kaliyuge - in this kali yuga
Prathame Padhe - in the first quarter of this yuga
Jamboodveepe - this denotes the place where the ritual is performed. India was known as Jambudveepa
Bharata Varshe, Bharata Kande - in the land of Bharat
Sakhabde Mero, Dakshine Parsve - to the South of the Meru mountain
Asmin Varthamane Vyavaharike - in the current period now reigning
Prabhavadi Shasti Samvatsaranam Madya - among the cycle of 60 years starting from Prabhava
Nama Samvatsare - the name of the year in the 60 year Hindu calendar
....Ayane - Dakshinayane (Aadi to Marghazi) or Uttarayane (Thai to Aani)
....Ritou - denotes the 6 seasons or Ritus - Vasantha, Greeshma, Varsha, Sharadh, Hemantha and Shishira
....Mase - one of the 12 tamil months
....Pakshe - either Shukla Paksham (day after Amavasya till and including Pournami) or Krishna Paksham (day after Pournami till and including Amavasya)
....Subha Thithou - one of the 15 days between Pournami and Amavasya (Prathama, Dvithiya, Trithiya, Chaturthi, Panchami, Shasti, Saptami, Ashtami, Navami, Dasami, Ekadasi, Dwadashi, Trayodasi, Chaturdasi, Pournami or Amavasya
....Vasara Yuktayam - one of the days of the week (Bhanu, Soma, Bhowma, Soumya, Guru, Brugu and Sthira)
....Nakshatra Yuktayam - the day's star or Nakshatram. 

So to make it understand more about the time scale, let me put it this way. According to Hindu belief everything which is present in this Universe has to die on some day. Even the creator Brahma will die some day. His life span is 100 years (but those 100 years is not same as 100 solar years). Currently, 50 years of Brahma have elapsed and this is the first day of the 51^st year. The dviteeya parardhe in the Sankalpa actually refers to the 2nd half of Brahma’s life. Each day of Brahma is called Kalpa. The present day in which we are living is given a name Svetavaraha. A Kalpa consists of 14 Manvantaras and Sandhi Kala. Within this day of Brahma already 6 Manvantaras have elapsed. Now we are in the 7^th Manvantara called Vaivaswatha. Each Manvantara consists of 71 Mahayugas (1 Mahayuga consists of Krita, Treata, Dwapara and Kali yugas in the ratio 4:3:2:1). Within Vaivaswata Manvantara already 27 Mahayugas are elapsed and in the 28^th Mahayuga already Krita, Treta, Dwapara are over. Now we are in the 1^st phase of Kaliyuga (Ashta Vimsati tame, Kaliyuge, Prathame Padhe explains this). Each yuga lasts for 4,32,000 years. This Kaliyuga began in the year 3102BC of Julian calendar. The other details in Sankalpa goes to the location where puja is performing, the current year, month, day, time etc… to the exact point.

To summarize

1 Yuga = 4,32,000 solar years

1 Mahayuga = 10 Yugas = 43,20,000 solar years

1 Manvantara = 71 Mahayugas = 30,67,20,000 solar years

1 Kalpa = 14 Manvantaras = 4,29,40,80,000 or 4.3 Billion solar years

1 Day of Brahma = 2 Kalpa (day+night) = 8.64 Billion solar years

Using the above calculations if we try to find the time elapsed so far after the creation of universe it comes to 155,521,972,949,113 (155.52 Trillion) solar years !!!

Hindu Cosmology and Time scale is really Interesting right……