Timeline of Cycles by René Guénon and Gaston Georgel
In 1929 René Guénon made the breakthrough in decoding the correct duration of the Manvantara and the duration of the 4 Yugas. That work can be found in his book “Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles”.
René Guénon (1886–1951) proposed a Yuga Cycle of 64,800 years in his 1931 French article, which was later translated in the book Traditional Forms & Cosmic Cycles (2001).[55]
Guénon accepted the doctrine of the four yugas, the 4:3:2:1 yuga length proportions, and Kali Yuga as the present age. He couldn’t accept the extremely large lengths and felt they were encoded with additional zeros to mislead those who might use it to predict the future. He reduced a Yuga Cycle from 4,320,000 to 4,320 years (1,728 + 1,296 + 864 + 432), but he felt this was too short for humanity’s history.
In looking for a multiplier, he worked backwards from the precession of the equinoxes (traditionally 25,920 years; 360 72-year degrees). Using 25,920 and 72, he calculated the sub-multiplier to be 4,320 years (72 x 60 = 4,320; 4,320 x 6 = 25,920). In noticing the “great year” of the Persians (~12,000) and Greeks (~13,000) as almost half the precession, he concluded a “great year” must be 12,960 years (4,320 x 3). In trying to find the whole number of “great years” in a manvantara or reign of Vaivasvata Manu, he found the reign of Xisuthros of the Chaldeans to be set to 64,800 years (12,960 x 5), someone he thought to be the same Manu. Guénon felt 64,800 years was a more plausible length that may line up with humanity’s history. He calculated a 64,800 manvantara divided into a 4,320 “encoded” Yuga Cycle gave a multiplier of 15 (5 “great years”). Using 15 as the multiplier, he “decoded” a 5-“great year” Yuga Cycle as having the following yuga lengths:[55][57]
- Satya: 25,920 (4 ratio or 2 x “great year”; 15 x 1,728)
- Treta: 19,440 (3 ratio or 1.5 x “great year”; 15 x 1,296)
- Dvapara: 12,960 (2 ratio or 1 x “great year”; 15 x 864)
- Kali: 6,480 (1 ratio or 0.5 x “great year”; 15 x 432)
Guénon did not give a start date for Kali Yuga, but instead left clues in his description of the cataclysmic destruction of the Atlantean civilization. His commentator, Jean Robin, in an early 1980s publication, claimed to have decoded this description and calculated that Kali Yuga lasted from 4481 BCE to 1999 CE (2000 CE excluding year 0). In Les Quatre Âges de L’Humanité (The Four Ages of Humanity), a book written in 1949 by Gaston Georgel, this same end date of 1999 CE was calculated; although, in his 1983 book titled Le Cycle Judéo-Chrétien (The Judeo-Christian Cycle), he later argued to shift the cycle forward by 31 years to end in 2030 CE.
| Yuga | Start (– End) | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Krita (Satya) | 62,801 BCE | 25,920 |
| Treta | 36,881 BCE | 19,440 |
| Dvapara | 17,441 BCE | 12,960 |
| Kali | 4481 BCE – 1999 CE | 6,480 |
| Years: 64,800 | ||
René Guénon explained in the aforementioned book how he arrived at the decoding of the real duration of the Yugas and of the Manvantara. He did not claim some secret source or divine inspiration, but rather he exposes his logical deduction based on elements of several different Traditions, and with that process demonstrates the complementary nature of the teachings of those Traditions. The end result of the breakthrough decoding, whose argumentation is too long to be duplicated here, is that:
A Manvantara = Maya Yuga = Satya (=Krita) + Treta + Dwapara + Kali
Present Manvantara = Reign of the Manu Vaivaswata
Vaivaswata is equivalent to the Chaldean Xisuthrus whose traditional duration is 64,800 years
64,800 years = 5 x 12,960 years, that is, 5 x Platonic “Great Years”
Manvantara = 4 Yugas (Ages) = 64,800 years
Relative duration of each Yuga : 4, 3, 2, 1
Duration of Yugas : 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10
Satya or Krita-Yuga (Golden-Age) : 64,800 x 4/10 = 25,920 years
Treta-Yuga (Silver-Age) : 64,800 x 3/10 = 19,440 years
Dvapara-Yuga (Bronze-Age) : 64,800 x 2/10 = 12,960 years
Kali-Yuga (Iron-Age) : 64,800 x 1/10 = 6,480 years
With this work, René Guénon achieved the duration of the Yugas and their relation to the truly traditional durations for the Great Year and the Precession of the Ages (or PoE).
Based on that decoding, Gaston Georgel wrote the landmark book “Les Quatre Ages de L’Humanité” (“The Four Ages of Humanity”).
René Guénon also said that beginning of the Kali Yuga occurred 7200 years after the fall of Atlantis and 720 years before the beginning of a “known Tradition”. For Gaston Georgel it was clear that the “known Tradition” could only be the Jewish Tradition, thereby unequivocally establishing both the beginning date for the Kali Yuga and the date for the fall of Atlantis. Consequently, this would have lead to the End of the Kali Yuga to have been in 1999 or 2000.
It is also interesting to quote in full the footnote written by Guénon (“Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles”, Partt II, Chapt. II: “The Place of the Atlantean Tradition in The Manvantara”):
“We think that the duration of the Atlantean civilization must have been equal to a ”great year”, understood in the sense of the half-period of the precession of the equinoxes; as to the catastrophe that put an end to it, certain concordant data seem to indicate that it took place 7,200 years before the year 720 of the Kali Yuga, a year which is itself the starting-point of a known era, but of which those who still use it today no longer seem to know the origin of the significance.”
The last portion is somewhat enigmatic and could have different interpretations, including an allusion to the assumed starting-date for that “known era”, and therefore the comment that Guenon thought that the end of the Manvantara was going to occur in the year 2000, is itself based on an assumption…
As Gaston Georgel noted in “Le Cycle Judeo-Chrétien”, page 40 of the 1983 edition (my translation):
“The chronology upon which rests the jewish calendar is taken from the jewish Bible. This chronology differs from that of the Septuagint and from the Samaritan version. The traditional basis is thus corrupted. As for the denomination of the months, it is of Chaldean origin.”
Georgel proceeds with other arguments to show that 2030/2031 is indeed the end date for the current cycle (Manvantara).
The following is a summary, in accordance with Georgel’s work, of some of the key data regarding Yuga Cycles:
Manvantara: Total duration of 4 Yugas (a.k.a. Maha Yuga): 64,800 years = 5 x 12,960 years
Krita (Gold) + Treta (Silver) + Dvapara (Bronze) + Kali (Iron)
The “Age of Heroes” existed between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, and was short compared to even the Iron Age.
Manvantara: complete development of a “humanity”
Kalpa = 14 Manvantaras = 14 x 64,800 = 907,200 years
Kalpa : complete development of a World Cycle, that is, of a “state” or “degree” of Existence
Year of Brahma = 360 Kalpas
“Para” or Life of Brahma = 100 Years of Brahma
Present Moment : near end of Manvantara No. 7
7 x 64,800 = 453,600 years since beginning of the present Kalpa.
(The issue of the contradiction between linear dating by modern science and “cyclical dating” according to the traditionalists is addressed by Georgel, through the use of trigonometry and a couple of graphs, but it is too complex to be explained here. In any case, it should be noted that trigonometry defines the trigonometric functions, which describe those relationships and have applicability to cyclical phenomena – [en.wikipedia.org].
Also, those who think that Carbon dating provides some sort of homogeneous evolution of time, should take a look at the work by Paul LaViolette, and the curves for Berylium (top plot) and Carbon (bottom plot) in this link [starburstfound.org], and how they correlate with the Galactic Alignments with Solstices and Equinoxes mentioned in the previous subthread, and the dates mentioned in the present subthread.)
Current Kali-Yuga : began around 4,450 B.C. and will end around 2030 A.D.
The current Manvantara began after the flood described in the Hindu Tradition (cataclysmic transition from the previous Manvantara).
A Manvantara ends with a cosmic cataclysm that changes the look of heavens and earth, by position of the polar axis back to the vertical position, for a New Golden Age (Krita Yuga).
When Earth’s Axis is in the vertical position there is no precession, and time does not elapse (a it is as if time stood still, and there was/will be no aging).
Quaternary Division of the Manvantara and relation to the Gregorian Calendar:
Krita-Yuga (Golden) – 62,770 B.C. to 36,850 B.C.
Treta-Yuga (Silver) – 36,850 B.C. to 17,410 B.C.
Dvapara-Yuga (Bronze) – 17,410 B.C. to 4,450 B.C.
Kali-Yuga (Iron) – 4,450 B.C. to 2,030 A.D.
Sufi Path of Love 