The Concept of Time in Indian Mythology

The smallest unit of time is a kaashta, which is 18 times the amount
of time it takes to blink an eyelid. 10 kaashtas make a kshanam and
12 kshanams constitute a muhoortam. 60 of these muhoortams constitute
a day. 30 days constitute a month and 3 months make up a ritu. 12
months of course constitute a human year.

We now move on from the human plane to the world of the departed
souls – the pitrus. Here, a human month equals the length of a day.
The brighter half of a Lunar month constitutes the pitru’s daytime
and the darker half their night.

In the realm of the Devas or the Gods, a human year constitutes a
single day. The brighter half of the year Uttarayanam makes up the
day time hours of the Devas while the darker half Dakshinayanam
makes up the nighttime hours.

An epoch or a yuga is the next higher level of measurement. 1200 Deva
years constitute the Kaliyuga or the present epoch that we are
believed to be living in; 2400 deva years make up the Dwapara yuga
that preceded kali yuga; 3600 years made up the Treta yuga and 4800
the Krita yuga respectively. Thus, the length of the Kaliyuga is
1200*360 i.e. 432,000 human years. A cycle of 4 yugas is referred to
as the catur yugas. A cycle of catur yugas lasts for 12,000 deva
years or 12,000* 360 i.e. 4,320,000 human years.

How do these time measurements correlate with the process of
creation?

Brahma in Indian mythology is referred to as the creator. A
thousand catur yugas are said to make up the daylight hours of a
single day of Brahma’s life. Another thousand make up the nighttime
of a single day of Brahma. Thus, a single day in Brahma’s life
spans 2000 * 4,320,000 ie. 8,640,000,000 human years. 360 such days,
each lasting 8.6 billion years constitute a year in Brahma’s life,
which lasts for a 100 Brahma years. At the end of one Brahma’s
life, another starts. This cycle goes on and on.

A Brahma’s life is also known as a Para. Each half param is
referred to as a parardham. It is believed that we are currently
living in the 2nd half of the life of the present Brahma.
It is to be noted that in the performance of Vedic rituals, the
frame of time in which the ritual is being performed is specified
both in macro and in micro terms, the term ‘dviteeya paraardhe’ (the
second half of Brahma’s term) is stated.

The reference point here is the moment of commencement of creation
of the Universe by Brahma. When we say ‘dviteeya paraardhe’, which
Brahma are we referring to? How many Brahmas have preceded the
current one? This specification is non-existant in Vedic mantras.
Since the whole process is cyclical, with one Brahma commencing when
another completes, and with this process repeating forever, there may
not be any significance in stating the position of Brahma.

In a cyclical concept of time every starting point will have to be
an ending point. If time is postulated as being linear and
unidirectional there will have to be an absolute starting point for
time. This cyclical nature of time as believed in Indian Mythology
refers to time as ‘anaadi’ or that without a beginning.

Yet another measure of time is Kalpa. The puranas are named after
kalpas; thus we have the matsya kalpa, koorma kalpa, lakshmi kalpa,
sweta varaaha kalpa, shiva kalpa, bhrahma kalpa, vishnu kalpa and so
on. Each Brahma’s term lasts for a period of 7 kalpas. The current
period in time is said to belong to the sweta varaaha kalpam, which
is in the second half of the life of Brahma.

A kalpam or an epoch is made up of 14 manvantaras and each
manvantara spans 71 caturyugas. The fourteen manvantaras are
respectively wayambhuva, sawosisha, audhama, thaamasa, raivatha,
sakshusha, vaivasvata, savarni, daaksha savarni, bhramha savarni,
dharma savarni, rudra savarni, rouchya and bowdhya. The present
kaliyuga is the 28th in the present Vaivaswata
manvantara.

Sankalpam: Thus, vedic mantras pin point the time of performance of
a ritual – by narrowing down from dwiteeya paraardhe (in the 2nd
half of the term of Brahma), Sweta varaaha kalpe (in the kalpa
sweta varaaha), Vaivasvata manvantare (in the 7th manvantaram),
Kaliyuge (in the kali epoch) – through the finer details such as the
name of the current year, month etc.