Page 5 - All India Magazine May-2024

Four Ages of Mankind

Vishnu and the four Yugas
According to the Hindu theory of the Yugas, it is in the
Dwapara that everything is codified, ritualised, formalised. In the
Satya Vishnu descends among men as Yajna. Yajna is the spirit of
adoration and sacrifice, and in the Satya yajna reigns in the hearts
of men, and there is no need of external ritual, external sacrific-
es, elaborate law, government, castes, classes and creeds. Men
follow the law by the necessity of their purified nature and their
complete knowledge. The kingdom of God & the Veda are in the
hearts of His people. In the Treta the old perfect order begins to
break and Vishnu descends as the chakravarti raja, the warrior and
ruler, Kartavirya, Parsurama, Rama, and the sword, the law and the
written Veda are instituted to govern men. But there is still great
elasticity and freedom and within certain limits men follow the
healthy impulse of their nature, only slightly corrupted by the first
descent from purity. It is in the Dwapara that form and rule have
to take the place of the idea and the spirit as the true governors
of religion, ethics and society. Vishnu then descends as Vyasa, the
great codifier and systematiser of knowledge.
CWSA 18-163-64

The ancient theory of cyclic evolution
The ancient theory supposed that in an entirely right and
sound condition of man, individual and collective, — a condition
typified by the legendary Golden Age, Satya Yuga, Age of Truth, —
there is no need of any political government or State or artificial
construction of society, because all then live freely according to
the truth of their enlightened self and God-inhabited being and
therefore spontaneously according to the inner divine Dharma.
The self-determining individual and self-determining community

All India Magazine, May 2024 5