Indian texts texts speak of Time as one continuous flow, that it is Cyclic and Non Linear.
That is Time flows in a Circle and Time recoils on itself.
There are four Aeons, Yugas.
Krutha or Satya Yuga,
Tretha Yuga, when Rama lived,
Dwapara Yuga, when Krishna lived and the present one in which we are living
Kaliyuga.
Image credit.
By Ingo Kappler –Inka 23:32, 8 May 2005 (UTC) – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134870
The Mahabharata War took place towards the closing years of the Dwapara yuga.
Kali yuga is reported to have begun after the departure of Lord Krishna and after Yuga Sandhi.
Yuga Sandhi is the Interregnum is the period between two yugas.
When did Kali Yuga begin?
Indians follow an almanac system based on the movement of the Sun and Moon.
Time is divided into finest parts and large numbers are also discussed..
This Almanac is called Panchanga s it takes into account five factors,Pancha means Five.
The Five are,
Thithi, waxing and waning of the Moon,
Vaara, Day,
Nakshatra, Stars and their Movements,
Yoga, a specific time of the day which indicates auspiciousness or otherwise and
Karana, yet another parameter of time to calculate auspiciousness.
The Panchanga is used by the Hindus daily to find out the auspicious dates.,movement of the Moon.
The Panchanga is read at the beginning of a year.
Panchanga predicts, among other things like natural calamities, general world status, weather.
And it predicts the Eclipses so accurately which tallies with modern scientific calculations.
Based on the Panchanga , the date when Kali Yuga began is arrived at.
This is how it has been done.
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The description is detailed to year-month-days of each and every king who ruled. By adding the total number of years of the four dynasties from Yudhishthir to Vikramaditya, it comes to 3,178 years which is 3141 Kali era or 39 AD, which represents the date when Vikramaditya left this earth planet.
According to the Bhavishya Puran and Rajtarangini, Vikramaditya lived between 102 BC and 15 AD; and according to the above details his period ends by 39 AD. There is only a difference of 24 years in the date-wise record of 70 kings who ruled Hastinapur for 3,085 years. A discrepancy of 24 years in 3,000 years of record could be a copying or printing mistake, and is thus negligible when we are dealing with a longer span of years. In this way the predicted period of the dynasties of Magadh and the historic records of the dynasties of Hastinapur correspond with each other and justify their correctness, and vice versa.
This is only a section of the magazine. It gives full date-wise detail of each and every king who ruled Hastinapur from Yudhishthir up to Vikramaditya. This is one of the rarest records that survived through this magazine.
The beginning of kaliyug, 3102 BC.
We have taken the beginning of kaliyug as the fixed point to determine the chronological dates of the events, kings, Divine dignitaries and the important personalities of our history. It is a common understanding that kaliyug started about 5,000 years ago (in round figures) and we never had any problems in the past in accepting this fact. But only after the arrival of the English people in India, all sorts of baseless criticisms started regarding our history and religion that were promoted and fostered by them. We had hundreds of such evidences regarding the date of Mahabharat war and the beginning of kaliyug in our history books that were destroyed by the British, still we have more than enough material to fully establish this fact.
(1) Astrological.
(a) We still follow the ancient astrological tradition. There is a most prestigious, 48 page detailed date-wise journal (panchang) with all the astrological facts and figures called “Vishva Panchangam,” established in 1925 and published by Kashi Hindu Vishvavidyalaya (Benares Hindu University), Varanasi. It gives all the three eras: Kali era, Vikram era and (Shalivahan) Shak era.
It is as thus:
It says on page 3 that 5,100 years have already elapsed before 2056 Vikram year which is 1999 AD. It means that the existing Kali era is 5101 in 1999 AD, which comes to (5101 – 1999) 3102 BC.
(b) Another panchang of India called “Shree Saraswati Panchangam” published from Navalgarh, Rajasthan, also gives all the calculations and says that 5,100 years of kaliyug had already elapsed before 1999.
(c) The “Vishva Vijay Panchangam” of Solan, Himachal Pradesh, says,
It means that 5,100 years of kaliyug had already elapsed before 1999 and 426,900 years of kaliyugare still left. Kaliyug is of 432,000 years (so, kaliyug started in 3102 BC).
Thus, the best team of the scholars of astrology all over India give the same figures of 3102 BC and publish it in the panchang (journal) every year.
These astrological journals are run by a group of the most learned astrologers of India, and thus it is mindlessness if any astrologer or scholar unnecessarily tries to argue about their accuracy.
(2) Others.
Alberuni. “Alberuni’s India,” first Indian print 1964 (S. Chand & Co., New Delhi) Volume I. In the second part of this book on page 4 Alberuni writes, “…the time which has elapsed since the beginning of kaliyug before our gauge-year, 4132 years, and between the wars of Bharat and our gauge-year there have elapsed 3479 years.” In the Annotations (p. 358) of the same book Alberuni tells about his gauge-year, which is: “A.D. 1031, 25th February, a Thursday.”
There is a difference of 968 years between 1031 AD and 1999 AD. Thus, adding 968 years to 4,132 years comes to 5,100 years, the period that has already elapsed since the beginning of kaliyugand up till today (1999), and this is exactly what is mentioned in the astrological journals of India.
Alberuni also mentions about Vikram era (57 BC) and also the Shalivahan Shak era which starts 135 years after the Vikram era.
Aryabhatt. The greatest astronomer and mathematician, Aryabhatt, was born in 476 AD. His work in astronomy is an asset to the scholars. He gave an accurate figure for pi ( ) 3.1416. He finished his book “Aryabhattiya” in 499 AD in which he gives the exact year of the beginning ofkaliyug. He writes,
“When the three yugas (satyug, tretayug and dwaparyug) have elapsed and 60 x 60 (3,600) years ofkaliyug have already passed, I am now 23 years old.” It means that in the 3,601st year of Kali era he was 23 years old. Aryabhatt was born in 476 AD. Thus, the beginning of kaliyug comes to 3,601 – (476 + 23) = 3102 BC.
‘According to KD Abhyankar, the starting point of Kaliyuga is an extremely rare planetary alignment, which is depicted in the Mohenjo-Daro seals. Going by this alignment the year 3102 B.C is slightly off. The actual date for this alignment is February 7 of 3104 B.C.'(wiki Kali yuga)
Kali yuga, therfore began on 7 February 3104 BC
Citation in block quote and References .
http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.org/articles/51_the_bhartiya_chronology.htm
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