Length of the Yugas.

[Vaidya N. Sundaram]

On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Greg Goode wrote:
>
> I have Sri Yukteswar's SCIENCE OF RELIGION (title from memory), which argues
> for a different mathematical calculation of yugas.  I think as he sees it,
> all time periods come out shorter than on the conventional view.
> Anyone have any info?
>
> --Greg

Namaste.

 Sri. Yukteshwar Giri in his arguments says that we are now in the
Dwapara yuga. According to his calculations, the entire length of the kali
yuga is about 1000 years (I may be wrong by a few 50's or a hundred as I
am trying to quote from memory. I will let you know if I misquoted after
refering my copy ...) and we are in 98th year of the dwapara yuga.
The relationship of the length  yugas with respect to each other still
remains the same. That is, the Dwapara yuga is twice as long as the kali,
th treta is thrice the length of th kali and the Satya yuga is four times
the length of kali. Also, between yugas, that is from the end of one yuga
to the begining of the next, we have a yuga Sandhi (meeting point) and the
length of the Sandhi is one tenth the length of the yuga. That is, the
length of the Sandhi before and after each kali yuga is 100 years. The length
of the Sandhi before and after each Dwapara yuga is 200 years and so on.
 The present Dwapara yuga we are in is supposed to be the ascendent Dwapara.
That is to say, after the kali of one Chatur yuga (all four yugas' put
to gether is one Chatur yuga)  the kali of the second Chatur yuga comes,
followed by the Dwapara, the treta and then the satya and that satya
yuga is followed by the satya yuga of the next Chatur yuga. The dwapara
that follows the second kali  yuga is what i refer to as the ascendent
dwapara yuga.
 When I say we are in the 98 +/- odd years of the Dwapara, I mean that we
are supposed to have crossed the ending sandhi of the kali and the
begining sandhi of the Dwapara. Thus we are in the 298th year of the Dwapara
but, only 98 proper, and for another 1900 years we will contiue to be so
and then there will be a sandhi of 200 years.
 According to Sri. Yukteshar Giri, the mistake is supposed to have
occurred after the death of Maharaja Pariksit. By the time of his
demise, we were into the kali having crossed the sandhi. And the
general knowledge levels even among th literate community was extremely
low. They did not know that at the begining of the kali, they were
supposed to reset the year clock to one. They did not and so the count
continued and we are where we are ...
 Another mistake they commited is that, they presumed that the year
calculations given in the Shastras are based on the year of the Devas.
Which says that the year of the humans is one day of the Devas and
so on. But according to Sri Yukteshwar Giri, the caluculations are
in fact based on the year of the humans. This is also elaborated by
Sri Paramahamsa YogAnanda in his commentary on the Bhagavat Gita.

Vaidya.
>From jaldhar at braincells.com Wed Oct  1 01:09:58 1997
Message-Id: <WED.1.OCT.1997.010958.0400.JALDHAR at BRAINCELLS.COM>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 01:09:58 -0400
Reply-To: "Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar at braincells.com>
To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: "Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar at BRAINCELLS.COM>
Subject: Re: Fwd: an important question
Comments: To: moctrlite at aol.com
Comments: cc: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
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> > Dear Sir,
> >
> > Hello.   I am a Catholic student, who is currently doing a report on the
> > prayer practices of the Hindu religion.  I have questions on how, why, when,
> > how much, and where they pray.  If it is possible for you to answer by
> > Wednesday the first of October or foward this to someone who can, I will be
> > very thankful.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >                                                                     Sincerly,
> >
> >
> >
> >                                                                           Eva
> > Bowers
> >
>

Dear Eva,

Hinduism is just a name outsiders have given to the various traditional
religions of India.  What I'm about to describe is the practice in
Gujarat, a state in Western India.  (Mahatma Gandhi was from there.)
People from other parts of India may do very different things.

Hindus pray for the same reason people all over the world do.  For love of
God, to ask favors, and to celebrate holidays and life events.  People can
pray by themselves at home or together with others in a temple.  Every
home has icons and statues of the God or Gods the family worships.  In
Gujarat these are usually located in the kitchen but people who can afford
it sometimes have a seperate shrine room. Other family members who may
also pray or meditate there.

Typically the lady of the house prays there for the familys health and
good fortune every morning and evening.  Boys and men of the Brahman or
priestly caste also have special prayers they are supposed to say every
morning and evening.

Before prayer one is supposed to bathe and most people don't eat or drink
until after they've said their prayers.  Most people pray in Gujarati (the
language of Gujarat) but Priests and educated people also recite verses
from the Hindu scriptures which are in Sanskrit.  (Sanskrit has the same
relationship to modern Indian languages as Latin has to European ones.)

The usual method of prayer includes offering various items such as water,
rice, food, incense, and songs to the God being worshipped.  It can
take from 5 minutes to half an hour depending on elaborate the worshipper
wants to make it.  The most important part is called arati.  it involves
waving a light or some incense clockwise before the image of a God as a
sign of respect.

While this is the most common way to pray it's by no means the only way.
If you feel connected to God you can pray at anytime in anyway makes Him
happy.  By the way, many people in Gujarat worship Goddesses and think of
the supreme being as the Divine Mother of the World.

Other forms of prayer including public worship in temples.  This is a lot
like home worship except on a bigger scale and conducted by a priest.  The
service takes place at least two times and upto eight times a day.  People
also get together in homes or temples to sing religous hymns together.

Another common form of prayer is called a vrata.  Typically if a person
wants a favor from God such as a good job or success in their schoolwork,
they'll make a vow to a particular God to fast for a certain number of
days, abstain from sex, and to conduct special ceremonies or read special
scriptures.  Many people in Gujarat observe a vrata called agyarush or
ekadashi on the 11th day of each lunar month.

There are also holy days throughout the year when you have to say special
prayers or follow certain customs.  Particularly important ones in Gujarat
are Shivaratri which is sacred to the God Shiva, Janmashtami which is the
birthday of the God Krishna, Shraddha a fortnight in which people pay
respect to their deceased ancestors, Navaratri nine days which are sacred
to the Goddess Durga who people honor with a special dance, and Diwali
which is like Christmas and New Years all in one.  At Diwali people
exchange gifts and pray for good luck in the new year.

The last form of prayer I wanted to mention was the ceremonies that take
place at different stages of life.  The fanciest is marriage.  For
Brahmans the ceremony where boys begin their study of the Hindu scriptures
is also very important.  Other ceremonies take place at birth, the sixth
day after birth (the time at which mother and child are considered out of
danger), the childs first haircut, the day the child first goes to school,
and hopefully much later on, at death.

I hope this helped.

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
I got engaged! See the pictures ==> http://www.braincells.com/jaldhar/sagpan