kaalapramaaNa

Much is being made of 2012 as the end of the world. In the Hindu literature, the perception of time is completely different. There are various accounts of time with slightly differing measurements, but here is presented what is probably the most accepted. I also consulted the book Puranic Encyclopedia by Sri Vettam Mani.

Carl Sagan in his hugely successful and influential book/TV Serial Cosmos, mentions about how the early Hindu sages were thinking in terms of billions, when the rest of the world did not yet begin to count numbers. Clearly, the table goes from 1/3600 of a second to several billion years.

For the end of Kali yuga in the current cycle, we have about 427,000 years to go! And we are in the 28th cycle of the 7th manvantara. For this manvantara to end, we have 43 cycles to go. And for this kalpa to end, we have about 7 more manvantaras. The current manu is vivaSvata. We will see the future manu-s in the next post.

At it does not end here. When the lifetime of current Brahma expires, a new Brahma takes over.

count	of this	is 1	equal to this of	in modern units	Comments
30	alpakala	truti	1/3600	second	~ 0.3 milli seconds
30	truti	kalaa	1/120	second	~ 8.3 milli seconds
30	kalaa	nimisha	1/4	second	~ 250 milli seconds
4	nimisha	ganita	1	second
60	ganita	vinadi	1	minute
60	vinadi	ghatika	24	minutes
60	ghatika	ahoratra	24	hours	Day + Night
15	ahoratra	paksha	15	days	1 Moon cycle
2	paksha	chandramasa	1	month	1 Lunar month
12	chandra masa	varsha	12	months	1 Solar year
1	varsha	deva aho ratram	1	Deva day	1 Human year
360	varsha	devavarsha	360	human years
4800	devavarsha	kruta yuga	1,728,000	human years
3600	devavarsha	treta yuga	1,296,000	human years
2400	devavarsha	dvapara yuga	864,000	human years
1200	devavarsha	kali yuga	432,000	human years
12000	devavarsha	catur yuga	4,320,000	human years
71	catur yuga	manu	306,720,000	human years
14	manvantara	kalpa	4,294,080,000	human years	Deluge
1	kalpa	Brahma's night	4,294,080,000	human years	No action
1	kalpa	Brahma's day	4,294,080,000	human years	Creation
2	kalpa	Brahma ahoratra	8,588,160,000	human years	Brahma's day + night
360	Brahma ahoratra	Brahma varsha	3,091,737,600,000	human years	1 Brahma year
100	Brahma varsha	End of Brahma	309,173,760,000,000	human years	100 Brahma years