Satya-yuga
Satya Yuga ( Sanskrit सत्य युग ), also known as Krita Yuga ( Sanskrit कृत युग Kṛta yuga ), is the first and most perfect of four Yugas or ages described in the Hindu scriptures . It is at the beginning of a Maha Yuga cycle. The Satya Yuga is followed by the Treta-Yuga . It takes four times as long as Kali-Yuga , i.e. 4 × 432,000 = 1,728,000 years. The law of life ( Dharma ) is fully realized in this age.
Satya denotes "truth", "righteousness" and "virtue". Satya Yuga is therefore the “age of truth” or virtue. Kṛta is the past participle of kṛi , to do, which translates as “done”, “completed”, “accomplished”. So it is the age of completion. At the same time, Kṛta denotesthe "foursome",the winningroll in the dice game , which brings total profit. The concept of completeness is connected less prosaically with the quaternary: everything whole, self-contained and self-contained has its four quarters ( pāda ) or stands on four legs.
The deity of the Dharma, represented as a cow, has a stable stance standing on four feet in this Yuga. The Dharma is to be understood here as Sanatana-Dharma , the universal law that maintains the order of the Rita . Accordingly, in this age everything is absolutely ideal and as it should be: the brahmins are holy, the kings are righteous and peasants and artisans serve obediently and with full devotion.
In Manusmriti , the “code of law of Manu”, the duration of Satya Yuga is given as 4000 years plus a preceding and following transition period of 400 years each, for a total of 4800 years. According to the Bhagavatapurana , however, this information is considered to be related to the time calculation of the gods, in which a year corresponds to 360 human years, the duration of the Satya Yuga in human years is therefore 4800 × 360 = 1,728,000 years.
A New Religious Movement (NRB) , the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (BKWSU) , also advocates the conviction of a golden age as the first of four ages . In contrast to the Hindu view, the Satya Yuga of the Brahma Kumaris is only about 1,250 years. This time, together with the following Silver Age, forms the paradisiacal epoch of human history . The people of the Garden of Eden are said to be almost godlike because of their virtue, inner strength and contentment. The form of rule is a monarchy. Social envy is unknown, interaction with one another is non-violent and instead loving.
literature
- Jagdish Chander: Adi Dev. The First Man. Om Shanti Press, Prajapita Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, Mount Abu, 1983, 2nd edition.
- Richard Musselwhite: Possessing Knowledge: Organizational Boundaries among the Brahma Kumaris. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009. ( Website of the "University of North Carolina". Dissertation as PDF file, 531 kB. )
- Stephan Nagel: Brahma's secret creation. The Indian reform movement of the "Brahma Kumaris". Sources, teaching, Raja Yoga. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 1999. ISBN 3-631-35484-3 .
- Heinrich Robert Zimmer : Indian myths and symbols: key to the world of forms of the divine. Diederichs Yellow Row 33. 7th edition Diederichs, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-424-00693-9 , pp. 18–24.
Individual evidence
- ^ Heinrich Zimmer: Indian Myths and Symbols. Munich 2000, p. 18
- ↑ Manusmriti I, 69
- ↑ Bhagavatapurana 3, 11, 19 ( Memento of the original from August 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ See on Satya Yuga in general: Nagel, 1999, p. 239, also Adi Dev, 1983, pp. 213-216. On the monarchy see: Musselwhite, 2009, p. 6, Nagel, 1999, p. 110ff., P. 239f. and p. 240, footnote 22
