Time is at the heart of Hinduism. In Hindu dharma, time has no beginning and no end. Time is a manifestation of God. The past, present and future all exist as a continuum in God. The Hindu dharma believes that time is eternal and cyclical. Destruction of the cosmos only leads to its re-creation. The entire material world is subject to everlasting cycles of creation, sustenance and destruction.
The universe is said to exist for a lifetime of Brahma, the creator. His one day is 1,000 maha-yugas (great ages). Each maha-yuga consists of four yugas (ages), each progressively shorter and more degraded. They are the Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga and Kali-yuga.
According to tradition, we have had just over 5,000 years of Kali-yuga and there remain 427,000 years still. At the end, the final incarnation of Shri Vishnu, Kalki, is scheduled to appear, to help usher the dawn of yet another Satya-yuga. Kali-yuga will be followed by pralaya or cosmic deluge. Shiva’s Tandav dance brings this end. Shiva, the lord of destruction and one of the holy trinity of Hindu gods, is also the bearer of time. Shiva is also known as ‘Kaalbhairav’ – the protector of time.
Hindu dharma also has the concept of the wheel of time or ‘Kaalchakra’ as we call it. It means the changing situations in the world and also in our life. It simply means passage of time. A simple example could be a human life. A human life cycle consist of birth, childhood, young age, teen age, adult, youth, middle age, old age and then death. So anyone who is born in this material world will also die.
The wheel of time applies to one and all living beings. Even the Gods have abided by the wheel of time during their avatars on the earth. In Satya-yuga, Shri Ram lived and ruled Ayodhya for 11,000 years before he left the mortal world. Dvapar-yuga saw Shri Krishna live for 125 years before leaving the material world.
Though time is eternal in Hindu dharma, our time in this mortal world or present life is limited. We need to be constantly aware of this reality and channelise our time for impactful and meaningful activities. ‘Here and Now’ is what matters and that is how we need to live our lives.
