sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ
rātriṁ yuga-sahasrāntāṁ te ’ho-rātra-vido janāḥ
sahasra — one thousand;
yuga — age;
paryantam — until;
ahaḥ — one day;
yat — which;
brahmaṇaḥ — of Brahma;
viduḥ — know;
rātrim — night;
yuga-sahasra-antām — lasts one thousand yugas;
te — they;
ahaḥ-rātra-vidaḥ — those who know his day and night;
janāḥ — people
This verse explains how incredibly long the life of Brahma, the creator god, is, using our idea of time to help us understand.
First, let’s break it down: One "day" for Brahma is not like our regular day. It is made up of thousands and thousands of years, specifically one thousand ages called yugas. Each yuga is very long and is marked by different levels of goodness and badness in the world.
1. **The Yugas Explained**:
- The first age, or yuga, is called **Satya-yuga**, which lasts about **1,728,000 years**. During this time, people are very virtuous, wise, and deeply religious. There is little to no ignorance or bad behavior. It’s a golden age.
- The next age is the **Treta-yuga**, lasting about **1,296,000 years**. In this age, people start to have some faults, and you’ll see more conflicts and problems than in Satya-yuga, although it’s still a pretty good time.
- The third age is called **Dvapara-yuga**, lasting **864,000 years**. Here, things continue to decline; there is even more trouble, and people are less righteous, losing sight of true goodness.
- Finally, we have the **Kali-yuga**, which we are currently in. This age lasts for **432,000 years**. It is known for having a lot of conflict, ignorance, and wrongdoing. In fact, we’ve been in Kali-yuga for about **5,000 years** already. It’s a time when true goodness is very hard to find.
2. **The Cycle of Time**:
- The passage of time in our universe isn’t just a straight line. Instead, it cycles through these ages repeatedly. After the Kali-yuga reaches its end, the divine figure of Kalki will come to set things right, destroying the forces of evil and starting the cycle again with a new Satya-yuga.
- When you add all these yugas together—1,000 of them—you get the length of one day of Brahma. This means that Brahma's day is as vast as **4.32 billion years**! And his night lasts just as long. So, in total, one full day and night for Brahma is about **8.64 billion years**.
3. **Brahma’s Lifespan**:
- Brahma lives for a total of **100 years**, counted in his "days" and "nights," which adds up to an unbelievable **311 trillion and 40 billion years** according to our time. While this might sound incredibly long to us, in the grand view of the universe, even Brahma’s existence is just a brief moment.
In the big picture, everything in our material universe is always changing. Just as bubbles appear and burst in the ocean, Brahma’s life and creation are also temporary. There are countless other Brahmas coming up and disappearing, showing that this cycle of life, creation, and dissolution is ongoing.
So, this verse gives us a glimpse of a deeper reality about time, highlighting that everything is temporary, even something as mighty as Brahma. It reminds us of the vastness and mystery of existence itself.