"In the Kali, righteousness remained to the extent of one-fourth only. Arrived in that age of darkness, Vishnu became black; practices enjoined by the Vedas, works of righteousness, and rites of sacrifices ceased. Calamities, diseases, fatigue, faults, such as anger, etc., distresses, anxiety, hunger, fear, prevailed. As the ages revolve, righteousness again declines; when this takes place, the people also decline. When they decay, the impulses which actuate them also decay. The practices generated by this declension of the Yugas frustrate men's aims. Such is the Kali Yuga, which has existed for a short time. Those who are long-lived act in conformity with the character of the age." In the "Bhishmaparvan" there is a paragraph in which it is said that "Four thousand years are specified as the duration of life in the Krita Yuga, three thousand in the Treta, and two thousand form the period at present established on earth in the Dvapara. There is no fixed measure in the Tishya (Kali)." [**]

It should be noticed that the immense duration of the ages as quoted above from the "Vishnu Purana" is peculiar to the Puranas. In the text of the Mahabharata "no mention is made of the years comprising the different Yugas being divine years," [*+] though the earlier books certainly favour far more extravagant notions of chronology than those which Western nations accept.

It is interesting to notice that in the account of the Krita Yuga, or Age of Righteousness, it is said that the castes were alike in their functions. This must evidently

mean that the modern caste distinctions did not then exist, and that all were devoted to the worship of one deity with one rule and one rite, evidently pointing to the time when their forefathers were monotheists. And in the judgment of the writer this happy condition was in the age of which the prevailing characteristic was righteousness.

Footnotes

^353:* See "Vishnu Purana," book i. chap. iii., and book vi. chap. i.

^355:* Muir, O. S. T., i. 45.

^355:+ "Vishnu Purana," p. 630, note.

^356:* "Vishnu Purana," p. 631.

^356:+ Ibid., p. 632, note.

^357:* Page 633.

^357:+ Muir, O. S. T., i. 144.

^359:* Muir, O. S. T., i. 148.

^359:+ Ibid., i. 148.