Mahabharata Quiz - 16

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Question - 16

It is said that Mahabharata occurred in Dwapara yuga. If the 5-year yuga was the time scale of the Mahabharata, how does it fit with Dwapara yuga? 

Answer:

The  4- yuga classification as Krita, Treta, Dwapara and Kali is generally understood to run into lakhs of years as follows:

Krita yuga - 17,28,000 years

Treat yuga -  12,96,000 years 

Dwapara yuga - 8,64,000 years

Kali Yuga - 4,32,000 years

This classification is based on the planetary revolutions with the basic unit as 4,32,000 years being the time taken by the 9 planets of Vedic astrology (Question -8 ) to meet together at the beginning of Aries in Ashwini star. This calculation is mathematical and used for measuring the age of Brahma, the creator god.

This classification is not found anywhere in the Mahabharata or Ramayana (the two Itihasas) or any human related life events. 

However, there is another classification of yugas with the same name, but expressed in terms of Dharma. 

Dharma will have 4 parts in Krita yuga

3 /4 parts in Treta yuga,

2/4 parts in Dwapara yuga and

1/4 part in Kali Yuga.

In this scale, the Mahabharata occured at the junction of Dwapara and Kali Yuga (Dwapara yuga sandhi).

Since this coincided with the period coming before the start of Kali Yuga of lakhs of years, people started believing that it was Dwapara yuga sandhi which itself ran into 64,000 years.

But this is not so, because in Mahabharata itself, in the context of the location of Samantapanchaka where the war took place, the narrator, Sauti said the war happened in Dwapara -kali yuga sandhi. He also said that in the same place, Parshurama annihilated the Kshatriyas in Treta- Dwapara sandhi!

If one uses the lakhs of years of Yuga classification, this Treta-Dwapara sandhi must have occurred 8,64,000 years before the Mahabharata. It is illogical to think that a location such as the Samanatapanchaka which got its name from 5 pools in Parashurama's period  could exist without any change for 8,64,000 years - not to speak of the retention of memory of the events that happened 8,64,000 years earlier. 

The yuga sandhi mentioned here was based on dharmic scale in existence then. The mention of two different yuga sandhi-s in the very beginning of the Mahabharata - one on Parashurama's time and another on Mahabharata time goes to prove that that yuga measurement was different and on scale of Dharma.

Therefore we can say that the Mahabharata occurred in Dwapara -kali yuga sandhi in the Dharmic scale of yuga.

The computation of time was by use of the 5-year yuga. As seen in the Rig Vedic verse on Dhirgatamas, who lived before Rama, one's life span was measured in terms of the 5 year yuga. Dhirgatamas died in the 10th yuga (RV: 1-158-6) - meaning, he died between 51 and 55 years of his age. 

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