Yuga

Yuga

• yoke
• pair; thing of two parts
• period or astronomical cycle, the era of peace

Yuga usually means the world era. There are four yugas, they are denoted by terms for playing dice:

• krita-yuga (otherwise satya-yuga – "golden age"),
• treta-yuga,
• dvapara-yuga,
• kali-yuga ("iron age")

Each subsequent yuga is shortened in comparison with the previous one by one quarter. In every subsequent era, piety and morality decrease, and ignorance grows. It is believed that the limit of the degradation of mankind comes in kali-yuga. The four Yugas comprise a total of 4,320,000 years and constitute Maha-yuga. 1000 Maha-yugas (4.23 billion years) constitute Kalpa, or the "day of Brahma."