Indra and Vrtra

[Subrahmanian, Sundararaman V [IT]]

One more thing to be noted is that even among competent astrologers, there
is a difference of opinion about the current yuga, the length of the yuga
etc.  Please note that Sri Yukteswar (Guru of Sri Paramahansa Yogananda) has
a totally different calculation about yugas.  Even his ayanaamsha does not
match with others like Lahiri etc.

The cycle of yugas as we think are :
satya - tretaa - dvaapara - kali - satya - dvaapara - ...

If I remember right, Sri Yukteswar postulates:
satya - tretaa - dvaapara - kali - dvaapara - tretaa - satya ...

Unless, we are experts in the area ourselves we will never reach a sound
conclusion on such matters, since even experts disagree.  Now comes the
individual choice (free will as we may call it) - should we research the
matter to the extent we are able to ascertain the veracity of the statement
or not.  There is no common answer to this.  [I am going to get a big
lecture on this from Sri Jaladhar -:)]

One thing I know after a brief foray into astrology, that it will take a
better part of a decade to be an expert on such matters.

Regards,
SVS

-----Original Message-----
From: Vidyasankar [mailto:vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 9:09 PM
To: ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG
Subject: Re: Indra and Vrtra


>Now some important astrological cycle is of 1200 years. And this
>is taken to be the duration of the kali yuga. This website listed
>kali yuga as 800 AD - 2000 AD (these are not my figures).
>So according to this assumption:
>
>kali: 800 AD - 2000 AD
>dwApAra: 1600 BC - 800 AD
>tretA: 5200 BC - 1600 BC
>satya: 10000 BC - 5200 BC
>

By this reckoning, kali yuga has ended and we are already two years into the
next satya yuga. The year is 2002 AD now. But no major event has occured
yet, to mark the end of the last yuga cycle and the beginning of the new
one.

And then, we have to take into account the tradition that says that the kali
yuga began with the end of the Mahabharata war. Which means that this big
war was fought in 800 AD. This is a little too late, is it not?

On a note of general caution, we should stop taking one or the other website
(or one or the other book, for that matter) as authoritative sources of
information. The mere fact that there is information out there, readily
available, does not mean that the said information is valid.

Best regards,
Vidyasankar