Yuga's In Hindu Mythology

In Hindu mythology, there will be multiple stories for same context. One such thing is the order of Yuga’s as per mythology. Questions like why yuga’s are divided into such a way or why Dwapar yuga comes after Treta yuga whereas two (Dwapar) should come before three (Treta) are some of the common questions related to Yuga’s. So here are three stories which depict the same logic.

Story 1 – Among all the stories about Yuga’s, this one is the most famous one to describe the order of Yugas and its name as per mythology.

Lord Brahma is considered as the creator of this universe, earth, and life. When Lord Brahma created the Universe, the Earth (Bhoomi) approached him in the form of a cow. She told him that she needed guidance on how to help and maintain the balance between good and evil. Lord Brahma told her that with each passing Yuga, the dominance of Evil would gradually increase compare to its previous Yuga.

Brahma said Satyuga would be the Golden age of man when good would overpower evil and Mother Earth (Bhoomi Devi) would stand proudly on her all four feet.

In Treta yuga (The Yuga of Three), the power of Evil would be more profound and the burden of evil would cause her to lose one leg.  Hence, the earth standing on three feet symbolizes Treta Yuga. As mentioned earlier Treta means three.

In Dwapar Yuga where Dwapar literally translates to two feet, the earth would bear more burdens of Evil and be forced to stand on two feet.

Kali Yuga is the time when evil reaches its peak and gains a human-like form as the demon Kali who chops off the Mother Earth’s remaining two feet. This also describes the precarious position of the world where good and evil are so deeply intermingled that it is impossible to separate the two.

Story 2 – This one is another explanation of the order of all Yugas which is based on the time scale.

The life span of the earth is divided into 10,000 parts called Charan and 1 Charana = 432,000 solar years.

So one Charana = 432,000 years.

Now the order and time span of Yugas are mentioned below

Satya Yuga      = 4 Charana  (4*432,000) years

Treta Yuga      = 3 Charana (3*432,000) years

Dwapar Yuga  = 2 Charana (2*432,000) years

Kali Yuga         =   Charana (1*432,000) years

Dwapar is twice the length of Kali and Treta is thrice its length. Due to this order Dwapar Yuga comes after Treta Yuga.

Story 3 - In this story, like other stories justify about the Treta comes before Dwapar yuga too, but it tells the other side that initially it Dwaparyuga was planned to occur before Treta Yuga. It’s a famous story happened during Satyayuga although it's a not so famous story about the order of Yuga’s.

During Satyuga, a beautiful woman named Ahilya was married to a famous saint, Shri Gautam Rishi. Lord Brahma had given Ahilaya’s hand to Gautam Rishi because of his rich knowledge and pious character. Ahilya was very beautiful and was among the most attractive women in the universe at that time.

Lord Indra was very much attracted towards Ahilya and have wrong desires about her. Indra thought of an evil plan. Every morning, Gautam Rishi got up before dawn and went to the lake away from his Ashram to take the bath. Indra thought it’s the best opportunity to go in the Gautam Rishi’s Ashram as Ahilya would be alone. Indra disguised himself like Gautam Rishi and went inside the Ashram. Ahilya could not recognize that it was the Indra under the guise of Gautam Rishi.

Indra had the physical relationship with Ahilya and one day while he was back to his original form Gautam Rishi saw him going out of his Hut in Ashram. Seeing Indra coming out from the hut he lost temper. He immediately went inside and blamed Ahilya and without listening a word of her cursed her that she will turn into a stone. The power of Gautam Rishi’s words was so powerful that Ahilya immediately turned into stone.

Narada muni who was aware of this entire thing explained everything to Gautam Rishi. How she was fooled by Indra’s deception and asked Gautam Rishi to get rid her from the punishment. Listening to the other side of the story, Gautam Rishi melted and said that he cannot take the curse back, but he assured that during Treta Yuga, when Lord Rama (Vishnu’s Avtaar), will come and touch her with his feet, she will be back into life from the lifeless stone. Listening to this solution of Gautam Rishi, Narada said that presently it is Satya Yuga going on and it will take thousands of years to complete. Thereafter, Dwapar Yuga will come which will take million more years to finish and after that Treta Yuga will begin. It will be very long for her to remain as a stone for such a long period of time.

It is said that, hearing to the pain poor Ahilya may go through, Gautam Rishi changed the ordering of the Yugas. With his power, he rotated the time span as such that Treta Yuga came before Dwapar Yuga. He did this so that Ahilya could get relieved from the curse as soon as possible.

I will add more stories whenever I find one, let me know if you find another story which depicts the theory of four Yuga's