hindu-cosmosWe're still mapping where this idea was first discussed. Key passages and related ideas below.

The Ages of the World (Yugas & Kalpa)

Time runs not in a line but in vast wheels — four declining ages, ours the darkest, turning without end.

Hindu cosmology thinks in staggering spans of cyclical time. History runs through four world-ages, the yugas, in which righteousness steadily declines: a first golden age of full dharma, then two diminished ages, and finally the kali-yuga, the present 'dark' age of strife in which virtue stands on a single leg. The four ages together make one great cycle, vast numbers of which compose still longer cosmic days and nights of creation and dissolution. Time does not run in a line toward an end but turns in immense recurring wheels.