Vedic and Puranic texts describe units of Kala measurements, from Paramaṇu (about 17 microseconds) to Maha-Manvantara (311.04 trillion years). According to these texts, the creation and destruction of the universe is a cyclic process, which repeats itself forever. Each cycle starts with the birth and expansion (lifetime) of the Universe equaling 311.04 trillion years, followed by its complete annihilation (which also prevails for the same duration). This is currently 51st year of Brahma, and this is the "year" when the solar system was created according to Hindu astrology, and is the first mahayuga for humanity. The unit given as 311.04 trillion years may be calculated as 3.1104 trillion or 31.104 trillion years depending on which source and which interpretation of said source is used for reckoning. Calculated by multiplying other time units, some texts accept some intermittent units where some do not figure these into the solution. However, the value of 33104 is constant and the only real conflict is the exponential value. None the less, the total age of the universe using the first figure given gives a summary age of existence of 1.24596 quadrillion years plus the number of years that have elapsed since the start of the current Brahma year.
Contents
Time units
Various units of time are used across the Vedas, Puranas, Mahabharata, Suryasidhanta etc. A summary of the Hindu metrics of time (kāla vyavahāra) follows.
Sidereal metrics
Sidereal time is a time-keeping system that astronomers use to keep track of the direction to point their telescopes to view a given star in the night sky.
Lunar metrics
Tropical metrics
Among the Pitṛs (forefather)
Among the Devas
The life span of any Hindu deva spans nearly (or more than) 4.5 million years. Statistically, we can also look it as:
The Viṣṇu Purāṇa Time measurement section of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa Book I Chapter III explains the above as follows:
For Brahma
(2 Kalpas constitute a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion human years)
One day of Brahma is divided into 1000 parts called charaṇas.
Four Yugas
The charaṇas are divided as follows:
The cycle repeats itself, so altogether there are 1,000 cycles of Mahā-Yuga in one day of Brahma.
The Surya Siddhanta definition of timescales
The Surya Siddhanta [Chapter 14 Mānādhyāyah (मानाध्यायः)], documents a comprehensive model of nine divisions of time called māna (मान) which span from very small time units (Prāņa [प्राण] – 4 seconds) to very large time scales (Para [पर] – 300000.04 Trillion solar years).
The current date
Currently, 50 years of Brahma have elapsed. The last Kalpa at the end of 50th year is called Padma Kalpa. We are currently in the first 'day' of the 51st year. This Brahma's day, Kalpa, is named as Shveta-Varaha Kalpa. Within this Day, six Manvantaras have already elapsed and this is the seventh Manvantara, named as – Vaivasvatha Manvantara (or Sraddhadeva Manvantara). Within the Vaivasvatha Manvantara, 27 Mahayugas (4 Yugas together is a Mahayuga), and the Krita, Treta and Dwapara Yugas of the 28th Mahayuga have elapsed. This Kaliyuga is in the 28th Mahayuga. This Kaliyuga began in the year 3102 BCE in the proleptic Julian Calendar. Since 50 years of Brahma have already elapsed, this is the second Parardha, also called as Dvithiya Parardha.
The time elapsed since the current Brahma has taken over the task of creation can be calculated as
432000 × 10 × 1000 × 2 = 8.64 billion years (2 Kalpa (day and night))
8.64 × 109 × 30 × 12 = 3.1104 Trillion Years (1 year of Brahma)
3.1104 × 1012 × 50 = 155.52 trillion years (50 years of Brahma)
(6 × 71 × 4320000) + 7 × 1.728 × 10^6 = 1852416000 years elapsed in first six Manvataras, and Sandhi Kalas in the current Kalpa
27 × 4320000 = 116640000 years elapsed in first 27 Mahayugas of the current Manvantara
1.728 × 10^6 + 1.296 × 10^6 + 864000 = 3888000 years elapsed in current Mahayuga
3102 + 2016 = 5118 years elapsed in current Kaliyuga.
So the total time elapsed since current Brahma is
155520000000000 + 1852416000 + 116640000 + 3888000 + 5118 = 155,521,972,949,118 years (one hundred fifty-five trillion, five hundred twenty-one billion, nine hundred seventy-two million, nine hundred forty-nine thousand, one hundred eighteen years) as of 2017 AD
The current Kali Yuga began at midnight 17 February / 18 February in 3102 BCE in the proleptic Julian calendar. As per the information above about Yuga periods, only 5,118 years are passed out of 432,000 years of current Kali Yuga, and hence another 426,882 years are left to complete this 28th Kali Yuga of Vaivaswatha Manvantara.