'an age of the gods'):[citation needed] Chatur Yuga (Sanskrit: चतुर्युग, romanized: caturyuga, catur-yuga, chaturyuga, or chatur-yuga, lit.
'catur means four;[citation needed] a set of the four ages'):[12] Daiva Yuga (Sanskrit: दैवयुग, romanized: daivayuga or daiva-yuga, lit.
'a divine or celestial age'):[citation needed] Maha Yuga (Sanskrit: महायुग, romanized: mahāyuga or mahā-yuga, lit.
It is believed that the four yugas—Krita (Satya), Treta, Dvapara, and Kali—are named after throws of an Indian game of long dice, marked with 4-3-2-1 respectively.
yuga proper) preceded by its yuga-sandhyā (dawn) and followed by its yuga-sandhyāṃśa (dusk), where each twilight (dawn/dusk) lasts for one-tenth (10%) of its main period.
Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri (1855–1936) proposed a Yuga Cycle of 24,000 years in the introduction of his book The Holy Science (1894).
He called this galactic center Vishnunabhi (Vishnu's Navel), where Brahma regulates dharma or, as Yukteswar defined it, mental virtue.
Dharma is lowest when farthest from Brahma at the descending-ascending intersection ("cycle-bottom"), where the opposite occurs at the "cycle-top" when nearest.
[50] Godwin claims the Jain time cycle and the European myth of progress influenced Yukteswar, whose theory only recently became prominent outside India.
Godwin points out many philosophies and religions that started during a time when "man could not see beyond the gross material world" (701 BCE – 1699 CE).
[51] John Major Jenkins, who adjusted ascending Kali Yuga from 499 CE to 2012 in his version, criticizes Yukteswar as wanting the "cycle-bottom" to correspond to his education, beliefs, and historical understanding.
He couldn't accept the extremely large lengths and felt they were encoded with additional zeros to mislead those who might use it to predict the future.
He calculated a 64,800 manvantara divided into a 4,320 "encoded" Yuga Cycle gave a multiplier of 15 (5 "great years").
[58] Daniélou and René Guénon had some correspondence where they both couldn't accept the extremely large lengths found in the Puranas.
He claimed his dates are accurate to within 50 years, and that the Yuga Cycle started with a great flood and appearance of Cro-Magnon man, and will end with a catastrophe wiping out mankind.
[59] Joscelyn Godwin found that Daniélou's misunderstanding rests solely on a bad translation of Linga Purana 1.4.7.
[61] In the early texts of Hindu astronomy such as Surya Siddhanta, the length of a yuga cycle is used to specify the orbital period of heavenly bodies.
According to Burgess, the Surya Siddhanta fixes the starting point of Kali Yuga as: The instant at which the Age is made to commence is midnight on the meridian of Ujjayini, at the end of the 588,465th and beginning of the 588,466th day (civil reckoning) of the Julian Period, or between the 17th and 18th of February 1612 J.P., or 3102 B.C.
[63]Based on this starting point, Ebenezer Burgess calculates the following planetary orbital periods: According to Robert Bolton, there is a universal belief in many traditions that the world started in a perfect state, when nature and the supernatural were still in harmony with all things in their fullest degree of perfection possible, which was followed by an unpreventable constant deterioration of the world through the ages.
[68] In the Cratylus (397e), Plato recounts the golden race of men who came first, who were noble and good daemons (godlike guides) upon the earth.
[69] Joscelyn Godwin posits that it is probably from Hindu tradition that knowledge of the ages reached the Greeks and other Indo-European peoples.
[69] Godwin adds that the number 432,000 (Kali Yuga's duration) occurring in four widely separated cultures (Hindu, Chaldean, Chinese, and Icelandic) has long been noticed.