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Contemporary Hindu eschatology is linked in the Vaishnavite tradition to the figure of Kalki, or the tenth and last Avatar of Vishnu before the age draws to a close, and Shiva dissolves and Brahma regenerates the universe.
Most Hindus acknowledge as part of their cosmology that we are living in the Kali Yuga, the last of four periods (Yuga) that make up the current age. Each period has seen a successive degeneration in the moral order and character of human beings, to the point that in the Kali Yuga where quarrel and hypocrisy are prevalent. Often, the invocation of Kali Yuga denotes a certain helplessness in the face of the horrors and suffering of the human condition and a nostalgia for a golden past or a future salvation.
However, Hindu conceptions of time, like those found in other non-Western traditions, is cyclical in that one age may end but another will always begin. As such, the cycle of birth, growth, decay, death, and renewal at the individual level finds its echo in the cosmic order of all things, yet affected by the vagaries of the comings and goings of divine interventions in the Vaishnavite belief.
The Four Yugas
A Divya Yuga comprises four yuga's and lasts for 4.3 billion years (close approximation to earth's age Age of Earth of 4.54 billion years. One cycle of these four yugas complete the existence of the universe and the universe starts to contract backwards in time followed by a new beginning of big bang. Yuga Dharma is a self-realization in each yuga.
KRUTHA YUGA (SATYA YUGA) lasts 1.632 billion years. (Human beings as heavenly bodies)
TRETA YUGA silver age lasts 1.3 billion years.
DWAPARA YUGA Bronze Age lasts 884 million years.
KALI YUGA Iron Age of hypocrisy and quarrel lasts approximately 448 million years. (Lord Vishnu's Avatar - KALKI)
When one cycle (Divya) of yugas get completed, the universe starts to contract to an incredible size (say the dust in a finger nail) after which a big bang is followed and that leads to formation of universe matters.
In each yugas the life span of the humans gets reduced starting from a few thousand years in the krutha yuga and in the Kali yuga the human's age is about to be 100 years and the majority food is supposed only to be the animal meat.
See also
References
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