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Cosmology in Hinduism
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True or false? According to Hinduism, the worst time period to live in each world cycle is called Kali Yuga.
There is no beginning. The world is created, maintained and destroyed. And then it’s created again, maintained and destroyed. And created again… Hindus consider time to be cyclical. There is no beginning nor end; the world has always been created, existed, and destroyed.
And it continues to be so. Every complete cycle from creation to destruction is called a kalpa. Every kalpa is described as a very long period of time. In some scriptures it’s calculated to be four billion, 320 million years. Every kalpa consists of four smaller cycles - yuga.
The first yuga in every cycle – Satya Yuga – is the most lovely to live in. During Satya Yuga, there is no crime, only kindness. But the further away from the beginning of a kalpa the more horrible life in the world seems to be. Right now we are living in the period of Kali Yuga. A time full of ignorance, strife, and darkness.
Kali? Isn’t that the goddess who looks a bit scary? Who wears bloodied skulls in a necklace? No, it’s not the goddess Kali who has given her name to this period, but a demon king who also has the name ‘Kali’. A very nasty piece of work.
Since Hinduism consists of so many different beliefs and traditions, there are also several different myths about how the world is created. In the Vedic texts for instance, the primal man Purusha becomes four groups of humans. In the oldest texts, Purusha is a cosmic man being sacrificed by the gods to create humans, but in later texts Purusha is no longer a being but the eternal indestructible primal soul. Many Hindus think that the world’s creation, preservation, and destruction is these three gods’ responsibility. Brahma creates the world, Vishnu maintains it, and Shiva destroys it.
Which one of them is most important depends on which denomination you belong to. Other creation myths describe the cosmos as a golden egg. And from this egg everything is born. But regardless of creation myth, most Hindus believe that everything has been here forever. There is no beginning, the world is… ...
created, maintained, and destroyed. And then it’s created again, maintained, and destroyed. And created again, maintained and… Thank you, that’s enough, I understand.