KALI YUGA--INDIA'S PESSIMISM[7]
Many nations, during the period of their infancy and ignorance, have
given to Time and its divisions the power and qualities of life and
have clothed them with moral purpose and attributes. Chronos was to
the Greeks of old the god of time, in whose hands were the destinies
of men. Even up to the present day not a few ignorant people of
Christian lands are influenced, to some extent, by an inherited
superstition about "lucky" and "unlucky" days. But I know of no land
which is suffering more than India from traditional, false, and
injurious conceptions of chronology. Time is here endowed with life
and enthroned among the gods. Sivan is "_Maha-Kalan_," the great
incarnation of Time, and the mighty destroyer of all things. It is
also said that "Time is a form of Vishnu."
[Footnote 7: This chapter is a modified form of a lecture delivered to
Hindus.]
We are told that we are living in _Kali yuga_, and that we are subject
to all the evil which is the permanent characteristic of this iron
age. I believe that there are few things in India which so thoroughly
influence the life, habits, and character of the people as do their
many conceptions about chronology. And I am convinced that
incalculable good would come to the country if all these old and
exploded ideas were to give way to more rational ones--such as are in
harmony with modern intelligence and civilization.
Consider, then, the various aspects of the chronology which all but
universally prevails in India in order that we may see wherein it
touches the life and moulds the thought of educated and uneducated
alike.
I
_The Astounding Length of the Chronological System_
In ancient Vedic times there obtained here, so far as we can see, much
more sober views of chronology than at present. It was much later that
the imagination of Hindu writers took full wing and carried the people
into the all but infinite reaches of Puranic chronology. One must wait
for the elaboration of Vishnu Purana, for instance, in order to meet
that apparent sobriety of mathematical detail which is utilized to add
credibility to the most fantastic time system that imagination ever
devised.
Christians of the West have doubtless erred on the side of excessive
brevity in their theories and beliefs about the beginnings of history
and especially in their attempt to locate the origin of the human
race. Until recently, it was thought that our human progenitor, Adam,
was created no more than sixty centuries ago, and that the whole
history of mankind is consequently confined to that brief space of
time. In the same way the practical mind of the West has pictured to
itself the termination of human life and history upon earth at some
not very remote date in the future. Science has already shown the
error of the former, as history is likely to demonstrate the falsity
of the latter theory.
But India has, with much greater daring and with more of unreason,
carried back many billions of years the origin of mankind and has
painted vividly a future whose expanse is as the boundless sea.
We are now, it is said, at the close of the first five thousand years
of _Kali yuga_. And this same _yuga_, or epoch, has 427,000 years
still in store for us and our descendants! Before it arrived, the
other three _yugas_--_Kritha_, _Tretha_, and _Dwapara_--had passed on;
and these, together, were equal to more than ten thousand divine
years, or to nearly four million human years! These four epochs equal
a total of 4,320,000 human years, and this is called a "_maha-yuga_."
This in itself would stagger the practical mind of the West. But it is
only the very threshold of Hindu chronology! There are seventy-one of
these great epochs in a "_Manuvanthara_," or the period of one Manu,
or human progenitor. And there are many of these Manus with their
periods. For instance, there are fourteen of them required in order to
cover the time called "_Karpa_," or one day in the life of Brahma. And
after Brahma has spent his modest day everything is destroyed and his
godship spends an equal period in sleep and rest. Then begins another
Brahmaic day, in which a new succession of Manus spend, with their
progeny, their interminable epochs. And thus one series of epochs
follows another, sandwiched in by equally long spaces of lifeless
darkness. And this goes on until Brahma has completed his divine life
of one hundred years; and then comes the final dissolution. Having
gone on as far as this, there is no reason why the imagination should
rest at this point; and so Vishnu _Purana_, which, of course, is
composed in praise of that god, claims that one day of Vishnu is equal
to the whole life of Brahma!
No one can bring within the range of his thought or imagination one
tithe of the years, divine or human, which are included in this
marvellous chronology. A billion years are but as a day to the Hindu
mind.
And if any one is anxious to know the exact place at which we have
arrived in this chronological maze, the same _Purana_ informs us that
we are five thousand years advanced in the _Kali yuga_ of "_Varaha
karpa_," or the first day in the second half of Brahma's life. And
thus we are supposed to live not far (say a few billion years!) from
the middle of the Hindu chronological system. One may better realize
the length of the system if he remembers that we have yet to spend of
the present _Kali yuga_ alone more than seventy times the whole of the
old Christian chronology from Adam to the present time! And yet, as
compared with the whole system described above, _Kali yuga_ is less
than one day in a thousand years. And that largely measures the
difference between the imagination of the West and the same developed
faculty in the East!
It is quite unnecessary to say that the prehistoric Manus of previous
_yugas_ are absolutely imaginary creatures, since history can tell us
practically nothing about the head of our race, even in the present
Hindu dispensation. There is not a line of history or of reliable
tradition that will enable us to reach farther back than five or six
thousand years in this quest for the origin of our race. There was, of
course, a beginning of human life on earth; and we may, just as we
please, call the progenitor "Manu" or "Adam." But, according to the
Hindu chronological system, six thousand years only carries us just
back into the last _yuga_, and is as but yesterday in the march of the
divine aeons of the past. Certainly, writers whose productions are
unreliable as a guide to the events of the past century or two are
only indenting upon their imagination when they descant upon the
chronological data of the _Puranas_.
One of the principal evils connected with this measureless time system
is found in the fact that it helps to destroy the confidence of all
intelligent men in the historicity of characters and events which
would otherwise be worthy of our credence. For example, the question
is asked whether such a man as Rama Chandra ever existed. We at once
reply in the affirmative; for does not the Ramayana dwell upon his
exploits, and are there not other reasons for believing that such a
hero lived in ancient times in this land?
And yet when the _Puranas_ tell us that this same Rama received his
apotheosis and appeared as an incarnation of Vishnu in the _Tretha
yuga_, say one or two millions of years ago, we are astounded at the
credulity of those who could write such a statement as well as those
who can accept it; and we are led to question whether, after all, Rama
ever existed or is simply a poetic conception carried far away into an
imaginary time. Thus the chronology of the land tends to cast a cloud
of doubt and suspicion over all that is historical, traditional, or
legendary in the literature of the people.
Still greater than this is the unfortunate influence of such a system
upon the people themselves, in helping to destroy any appreciation
that they would otherwise have of historic perspective. It is well
known that the people of India have throughout the ages been the most
wanting in the ability to write and soberly to appreciate historic
facts.
They are great thinkers and wonderful metaphysicians, but they are not
historians. The meagre history of India which has come down to us was
not written by the people themselves. Not until recently, and then
under the influence of western training, did any reliable book of
history emanate from the brain and hand of a native of this land. All
that we know of the ancient history of India comes to us in two ways.
It is known indirectly through the language and literature and ancient
inscriptions of the past. Historians of to-day have to study the
science of language, and especially the growth of the Sanscrit tongue;
and, through an intimate knowledge of the same, they arrive
approximately at the time in which many of the most important books of
the land have been written and at the dates of the events narrated in
them. Or they may be helped, to some extent, to learn this history by
a study of the teachings of the books themselves, which may indicate
the time in which they were written. A few inscriptions and coins give
the dates of certain reigns, which thus bring us directly and briefly
into the correct era of certain important events.
But the bulk of the history of India comes through foreigners. At
different periods in the history of the land men of other
nationalities visited India and then recorded their observations
concerning the country and the people. The Greeks were great
travellers and keen observers in ancient times. They came to India and
left in their books such statements about the land as assist us to
understand its condition at that period. Then the Chinese, in the
early centuries of the Christian era, visited this land and recorded
in their works much of interest about the social and religious
condition of the people. Later, the Mohammedan conquest brought many
foreigners into India, and some of the writers of Islam give us
further insight into the affairs of the country. From the fifteenth
century the Romish missionaries have conveyed, through their reports
to Rome, much of information concerning the people and their life. And
thus the history of India has largely depended upon the keen and
careful observations and statements of men of other lands who came
here for travel, trade, or religion. But Indians themselves have, at
no time, contributed to this most important department of literature.
We may search in vain for even one volume of reliable history out of
the myriad tomes of embellished narratives which have emanated from
the fertile brains of the men of India. How shall we account for this
strange and very striking fact? It must be, in part, owing to the
innate passion of India at all times for poetic embellishment and
exaggeration. A cool, scientific, unadorned statement of a fact or of
an event has never satisfied the soul of the children of the tropics.
Hence, the history of the past becomes legend, human heroes are
painted as divine, and epochs and eras are lengthened out to almost
eternal proportions.
Now the most serious result of all this is that the people have come
firmly to believe that these wild exaggerations, which were written by
some dreamy poets of the past, are the sane and cool expressions of
simple historic fact; and thus they have largely lost the true sense
of historic perspective, are unable to distinguish between fact and
fancy, and are strangers to the lessons of the past. For it must be
remembered that the teachings of former ages, and especially the
life-lessons and character-influences of those generations of men,
have less and less of significance to us the farther we throw them
back into the dim and hazy realm of the prehistoric and legendary. The
near past, with its familiar voices and its heroes of real flesh and
blood, brings to us an appeal to life and noble endeavour to which we
are always glad to respond; while the remote characters of myth and of
legend neither impress us with their reality nor inspire us to a
higher and better life.
And, in the same way, these immensely drawn-out aeons of the past make
it impossible for those who believe in them rightly to appreciate the
significance and importance of the present. One's presence in the
world and the value of his best activity for the world's good can mean
something to him if he appreciate the fact that there is no great
distance to the very beginning of human history. Though his span of
life is small, it nevertheless has a definite relationship to the
whole of history, and there is some encouragement for a man to work
for the good of his race. But this encouragement dwindles into
nothingness when a man believes in those many aeons of human life, each
aeon being in itself an immense reach of billions of years.
II
_The Cyclic Character of Hindu Chronology_
A very unique thing about this chronology is that it revolves in
cycles. Each _maha-yuga_ is composed of four _yugas_, and these are
ever the same series and of the same character. We pass on through the
long vista of _Kritha_, _Tretha_, _Dwapara_, and _Kali_ only to begin
once more on the same series; and thus forever we move in this
four-arc circle without ever getting outside of it. It is claimed
that this cycle of _yugas_ has already revolved about twenty million
times and will go on spinning twenty million times more, attaining
nothing and going nowhere. It is enough to make one dizzy to think of
this mighty chronological wheel, spending 4,320,000 years for every
one of its forty million revolutions, with nothing to vary the
monotony of these ever recurring epochs!
The first question which one would naturally ask, after assuming the
truth of this breathlessly long system, is whether it could forever
return upon itself after this fashion. Is there no _progress_ in time?
Is it true, in this sense also, that "there is nothing new under the
sun"? While other people are refreshed by the sense that they are
moving forward and upward in the fulfilment of some great destiny, are
ever adding new increments to their wisdom, and are rising higher upon
"their dead selves" to ever nobler achievements, is it right that the
people of this great land should be doomed to think that there is no
permanent advance for India, but that she alone must forever return
whence she started and repeat the weary cycle of the past?
As a matter of fact, no people can be thus tied down to any mechanical
order of time. Every race and nation is either making for progress or
for degeneracy. It will never return to its old moorings. The past has
told upon it. It has accumulated some wealth of knowledge, of
experience, of character, which, as the centuries roll, brings it
farther on in its career. It is true that a nation, like a man, may
have lapses by which it may fall down a step or more in the ladder of
its upward progress. But this cannot be a necessity of its nature or a
relentless law of its being.
This chronological system also accounts for much of the pessimism that
pervades the minds and depresses the heart of the people of India
to-day. It is everywhere claimed that the best things of India were
found in the remote past. But, you ask, will not the _Sattia
yuga_--the golden age--return again? Oh, yes, it is next in the
procession, we are told. But we must not forget that there are about
427,000 long years before this _Kali yuga_ comes to an end. Even
supposing that the doctrine of transmigration is true, and that the
soul of man must pass through many reincarnations; who can be expected
to hold on to courage and hope through nearly half a million years of
dreary existence? What India sorely needs to-day is a conviction that
she is moving onward--that there is but one _yuga_ in her calendar,
and that that is the _yuga_ of _opportunity to rise to higher things_.
Thus alone can she be stimulated to her best efforts and most worthy
activity.
In this connection we must not forget another aspect of these changing
and ever recurring ages of the _puranas_. Each _yuga_, _maha-yuga_,
and _karpa_ is followed by a period of more or less complete
destruction. The achievements of each period are forgotten, because
its results are obliterated or consumed by a mighty cataclysm. And
thus no gain acquired in any past age is available for the coming
epoch. In this way, the whole idea of the puranic chronology is the
most effective ever devised by man in any land to bring discouragement
and despair into the heart of the people who live under it. Whether we
look at the absurd length, the discouraging cycles, or the destructive
cataclysms which are an essential part of the system, one and all
bring in their train depression, stagnation, and the spirit of
reckless waste. While we recognize that this chronology is a natural
product of the dreamy, patient soul of the East, the most important
fact for us to remember is that it also perpetuates and accentuates
the very evil which gave it birth.
III
_The Moral Characteristics of the Hindu Time System_
This, doubtless, is the most striking feature of this chronology and
gives it a larger influence than any other in the thoughts and life of
the people of this land. And I really believe that it is more
deleterious in its influence upon the Hindu character than anything
else connected with this system.
According to this chronology, in its most elaborated form, every day,
yea, every hour as well as every _yuga_, or epoch, has its peculiar
moral character assigned to it. It is well known that the first era in
the _maha-yuga_ is called _Sattia yuga_, or the era of truth. During
this period the cow of righteousness stands upon four legs, and all
living beings are good, beautiful, and happy. This indeed is the
golden age of Hinduism. But, alas, its last departure was some four
million years ago, and it will not return, they say, for nearly half a
million years more. Then it is followed by "the silver age," in which
the cow is said to stand on three legs only! In other words, virtue
and happiness have suffered diminution, and evil and misery have crept
into human life. If in the previous age asceticism was the crowning
glory, in this second age knowledge is supreme. This is said to be
the time of Rama's exploits and trials.
We then come into the bronze era, the so-called period of Krishna's
incarnation and "goings." The poor cow of virtue has suffered still
further limitations and has but two legs to stand upon in this _yuga_!
This is called the age of sacrifice--the time when sacrifice has
preeminence as a source of power in salvation.
Then we come down to the iron age in which we have the supposed
infelicity to live. This is the time of evil, _par excellence_, in
which the cow has been reduced to the last extremity and has to stand
upon one leg! The gradual deterioration of the ages finds here its
culmination. Of this fourth age there is a description in the
Vishnu-purana, which is translated as follows:--
"Hear what will happen in the kali yuga.
The usages and institutes of caste, of order and rank, will not
prevail,
Nor yet the precepts of the triple Veda.
Religion will consist in wasting wealth,
In fasting and performing penances
At will; the man who owns most property,
And lavishly distributes it, will gain
Dominion over others; noble rank
Will give no claim to lordship; self-willed women
Will seek their pleasure, and ambitious men
Fix all their hopes on riches gained by fraud.
The women will be fickle and desert
Their beggared husbands, loving them alone
Who give them money. Kings, instead of guarding,
Will rob their subjects, and abstract the wealth
Of merchants, under plea of raising taxes.
Then in the world's last age the rights of men
Will be confused, no property be safe,
No joy and no prosperity be lasting."
"Women will bear children at the age of five, six, or seven, and men
beget them when they are eight, nine, or ten. Gray hair will appear
when a person is but twelve years of age, and the duration of life for
men will only be twenty years."
Now the idea in all this is that each _yuga_, or era, has its fixed
character. Rather than that the men of a _yuga_ should impart their
character to the age in which they live, the age itself has a
pronounced moral bent which is transferred to all who happen to live
under it. Thus we see in the theory a perversion and contradiction of
the facts; for an ethical character is assigned to days and hours
rather than to moral beings, who alone are capable of such values.
Therefore, for a thorough consideration of the system as a whole, it
is only necessary that we consider the character assigned to this evil
age in which we live. There is nothing more deeply wrought into the
consciousness of the people of this land at the present time than the
conviction that this time in which we live is indeed _Kali yuga_, that
it is irremediably bad, and that it taints with its own character
everything that has life.
Pandit Natesa Sastri remarks: "In India when a young boy or girl
happens to break, in eating or dress, the orthodox rules of caste, his
or her parents will say, 'Oh! it is all the result of the _Kali
yuga_.' If a Hindu becomes a convert to any other religion, or if any
atrocious act is committed, the Hindu will observe, 'Oh! it is the
ripening of Kali.' Every deviation from the established custom, every
vice, every crime, in fact, everything wicked, is set down by the
ordinary Hindu to the ascending power of the Lord of the Kali age."
Nor is this merely a superstition of the ignorant. We remember how, in
the year 1899, when it was said that great calamities were due, the
Dewan of Mysore promised to place the matter of preparing for these
calamities before the Maharajah. For was it not the five thousandth
year of _Kali yuga_?
Now it does not occur to one in ten thousand to ask whether this is
really so. It is accepted as a dogma which must not be questioned; and
all the evil and falsehood which this involves must be a dread of the
soul and a bondage of the mind whether it become a fact of experience
or not.
But, accepting the universally received belief of India that _Kali
yuga_ is now five thousand and eight years old, who can tell us what
was the condition of things in India before this? Everything before
that time is absolutely prehistoric. The best authorities, and indeed
all authorities, claim that the Vedas were first sung, that the Rishis
of India came into existence, that the Sanscrit tongue and the Indian
Aryans who spoke it and the religion of Hinduism which they brought or
cultivated,--all of these find their origin during the last five
thousand years. All the evidences of history unite to assure us that
there is practically nothing existing at the present time in this land
which is not in some way the child of these last fifty centuries of
_Kali yuga_. Who, then, can dogmatically tell us that these centuries
have been better or worse than the eras preceding them? We know no
more about the _Dwapara_ and the other previous eras, if any such ever
existed, than we know about the inhabitants of other planets, if such
there be. It is therefore futile, yea more, thoroughly wicked, to
impose upon the people a chronological system which is so pessimistic
and hopeless in its tenor as this.
But even looking back through the probably four thousand years which
embrace all that we really know about India, what do we see to
encourage this pessimistic view of our era?
Let it not be assumed that the people of India in the days of the
Rishis of old were purer in life or loftier in ideals than many who
live in India to-day. It is true that such evils as caste, infant
marriage, and many similar customs did not exist at all in Vedic days.
But it is also true that not a few serious evils of ancient times,
such as drunkenness, human sacrifice, and slavery, do not generally
exist in India to-day.
But if we desire to know what the condition of the present time is, we
should compare this beginning of the twentieth with the beginning of
the eighteenth century and see what progress has been achieved. During
the last two centuries numberless crimes and evils have been swept
away. I need only mention such enormities as _thuggee_, _sattee_,
infant murder, etc., all of which were thriving even a hundred years
ago, but which are now things of the past. And what shall I say of a
horde of other customs that have cursed the land, such as infant
marriage, _thevathasis_, caste, all of which are beginning to yield to
the enlightened thought of the present and will soon be driven out of
the country?
I need not add, however, that all of these wonderful changes and
progress have not come out of Hinduism. They have been carried out and
are progressing in the teeth of constant opposition from the orthodox
defenders of the ancestral faith. It is the new light of the West that
has dawned upon India and has brought to it a new era. Even while the
people are insisting that they are in the midst of _Kali yuga_ and are
confident that the days are "out of joint," they are nevertheless
witnessing such a revolution in religious, social, and intellectual
life all around them that any people who were not under the blind
spell of the Hindu time-fallacy would rejoice with exceeding joy to
see it.
And herein do we find one of the great evils of this chronology: It
incapacitates the people to accept or to appreciate any blessing which
has or may come to them through religious and social advancement.
They think that everything must be bad, as a matter of course, in
_Kali yuga_, and so nothing can appear good to them, however
beneficent and beautiful it may be.
This conviction that things are now out of joint, and the settled
purpose that all will continue an unmixed programme of evil, has more
to do with the sad and universal pessimism of India than anything else
of which I know. It crushes all buoyancy and cheer out of the mind and
rests like a pall upon every future prospect.
Then this expectation for the future robs men of any ambition to
remedy present evils. For, they naturally will say, "Why flee from
ills which are pressing upon us and which by experience we have
learned to endure, if it be only to contract greater troubles in their
stead; for freedom from evil is an impossibility in this age?" Is it
not, to a very considerable extent, the reason why there are so few
whole-hearted reformers in India? Why should a man seek, at the risk
of opprobrium and enmity, to root out of the country some accursed
custom if his inherited belief in the inherent badness of the present
era is still with him? He must feel that all his efforts will be worse
than vain; for even if he and others may succeed in overcoming this
custom, it will be only to give room to another that may be worse.
Hence the universal apathy in the face of crying evils and damning
customs; hence also the helpless "_cui bono?_" to every effort of
others to help the land out of the deep pits of injustice and ancient
ills.
Out of this belief comes another equally portentous danger, viz. that
of easily yielding to the temptations of the time, and of a readiness
to participate in the common sins of the day. For, say many, are not
these immoralities and evils an integral part of the time; and, if so,
what harm is there in our partaking of them? Or, at least, is it not
our best interest to harmonize ourselves with the essentially evil
environment of our age rather than vainly to combat the sins of the
day and to strive to no purpose to remove them?
And thus a belief in the divine order and purpose of the evil of our
time and in the impossibility of changing the character of our age
becomes one of the most prolific sources of sin, of weakness, and of
moral and spiritual apathy in the land to-day. Do not many sin without
fear and with increasing facility because they think it is the only
life that best harmonizes with this _Kali yuga_ in which they live?
Much of this conception of time is connected with the all but
universal belief of the people in astrology. In India, astrology is
still fed by popular ignorance and superstition, and continues to rule
with an iron rod in this last stronghold among the nations of the
earth. It would seem as if it controlled the conduct of individuals,
of families, and of society in general. It claims that for one to be
born under the dominant influence, or spell, of one of the heavenly
bodies is for him to be its slave ever afterwards. And thus the life
of every human being is said to be largely controlled by certain
planets and constellations, some of which are malign, and some benign
in their character and influence.
For it must be remembered that it is not only the _yugas_ that are
possessed of moral attributes; even years, months, days, and hours are
also classified as good and bad, auspicious and inauspicious. For one
to do a thing this month is auspicious, while on the next month it
will be the reverse.
In the same manner, almost every human activity has its "lucky" and
"unlucky" times--occasions when effort is much less, or more safe or
valuable, than at other times. For instance, the Hindu is warned
against going eastward, Mondays and Saturdays; northward, Tuesdays and
Wednesdays; westward, Fridays and Sundays; and southward, Thursdays.
This, we are told, is because Siva's trident is turned against those
points of the compass on those particular days, and one would
therefore be in danger of being transfixed by this divine weapon!
Then a man must not begin any important work on _Rahu-kalam_. This
inauspicious time covers an hour and a half of each day of the week
and is at a different hour every day. The only safe hour is from 6 to
7.30 each morning. That hour is free from the influence of _Rahu_, and
is therefore auspicious. And what is Rahu? It is not a planet at all,
as was thought years ago; nor is it a mighty snake which periodically
swallows the sun or moon. It is merely the ascending node in astronomy
wherein alone the eclipses can take place. And yet this imaginary
monster has a very real place in the life of this great people, and
the foolish dread of it converts a period daily into an inauspicious
occasion for important effort.
I will present only one other illustration with a view to showing how
extensively this moral attribute of time is ascribed and emphasized in
the serious affairs of life in India. For instance, when a man is
engaged in the performance of religious duties, it is regarded as of
supreme moment that he know when certain acts are of no merit, or, on
the other hand, of special merit. Now, there is a regular code of
rules for this special purpose. By observing these rules carefully one
may accumulate religious merit or power with the gods beyond any one
who does not observe them. We are told that a rupee contributed in
charity during the time of an eclipse, or at the time when the new
moon falls upon Monday, brings as much merit to the contributor, with
the gods, as an offering of one thousand rupees at any ordinary time.
Who, then, would not choose the right time for his religious activity
if time alone is the element which adds value to it, and if motive has
evidently so little of importance in giving quality or value to our
efforts in the religious life?