Cosmic Day of Brahma the Creator

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By V. Krishnamurthy

Cosmic Day of Brahma the Creator -

The Hindu Concept of Time

 

Those people who know the day of Brahma, which is of duration

Of a thousand (mahA-)yugas and the night

Which is also of a thousand (mahA-)yugas

They know day and night --bhagavad-Gita, VIII - 17

 

In Hindu cosmology and metaphysics it is not accepted that the

universe was created from out of nothing at a particular point of

time. For if something is created or born, it has to be dissolved,

has to die. Strictly the conservation principle applies here. The

universe was created according to Hinduism only by transformation of

something which was latent before that. Creation is just a

manifestation of what was unmanifest before. sRSTi and samhAra,

creation and dissolution, are only two events in a long cyclic

succession of events. There is no beginning or end. This

alternation between manifestation and non-manifestation is what

appears as the passage of time. Manifestation is when the universe

of names and forms appears and non-manifestation is when it

disappears. The only Ultimate Reality is brahman. Even Brahma, the

Creator (mark the distinction between this word in the masculine

gender and the word brahman, in the neuter gender) is only a

manifestation of brahman at one point of time. He is the womb from

which the entire universe becomes manifest and He is the One into

which the entire universe dissolves. Each period of this

manifestation of this Universe is a day of Brahma. From one day of

Brahma to another day, that is, from one period of manifestation to

another such, many things survive in their latent forms. Among

these are the vedas - it is in this sense that the vedas are

eternal - and the complex of prints of individual minds with their

store of impressions called vAsanAs. These survive the nights of

Brahma, the period of non-manifestation. The lengths of these

cosmic days and nights in this long cycle of events have been

elaborately described in the scriptures. The units mentioned

therein are fantastically large and a modern mind may be tempted to

dismiss them as a concoction. But the consistency with which

different scriptures written by different people at different times

in the past reveal these magnitudes of the yugas, is remarkable.

 

 

As detailed in the bhAgavata purANa - as well as in various other

purANas, though with slight variations - the eternal flow of Time

goes through cyclical periods of manifestation of the universe and

equivalent periods of non-manifestation. Each such period of

manifestation (or non-manifestation) is called a kalpa of Brahma

the Creator and is equivalent to 4.32 billion human years. This is

subdivided into 14 manvantaras. Each manvantara has a manu ruling

over the Earth and an indra ruling over the heavens. We are now in

the seventh manvantara of this kalpa. The previous six manus are

listed on the ensuing page. The present manvantara is called

Vaivasvata manvantara because Vaivasvata Manu is the Lord of the

Earth now. Each manvantara is divided into 71 mahA-yugas of

4,320,000 years each. We are in the 28th mahA-yuga of this

manvantara.