Listen, O wise one, to the ancient reckoning of time as taught by the sages. It is said that a single year for the gods is equal to three hundred and sixty years for humans—thus is the measure of a divine year known among people. By this divine calculation, the great cycles of time, the yugas, are counted. In the sacred land of Bharata, the learned know that there are four yugas: first comes the Kṛta Yuga, followed by Tretā, then Dvāpara, and finally, the Kali Yuga. These four yugas together make up the complete cycle of time. The Kṛta Yuga, the first and purest age, endures for four thousand divine years, with its dawn and dusk each spanning hundreds of years, and a twilight of similar length. Each subsequent yuga—Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali—is shorter than the previous by one quarter, including their respective dawns and twilights, measured in hundreds and thousands of years. When all four yugas are counted together, they total twelve thousand divine years. A thousand such cycles of four yugas form what is known as a kalpa. Within a kalpa, seventy-one cycles of these four yugas make a manvantara, and there are fourteen such manvantaras, or reigns of Manus, in one kalpa. In this manner, countless kalpas and manvantaras, along with their myriad progeny, have come and gone—so many that they are beyond reckoning and description, impossible to recount in order or detail. A kalpa, this vast expanse of time, is called a day of Brahmā, the creator who emerges from the unmanifest. A thousand such kalpas make a single year for Brahmā. For Brahmā, eight thousand years constitute his own yuga, and a thousand such yugas form a savana, a measure of time for the lotus-born god. A thousand savanas, multiplied thrice and then again thrice, is said to be the complete span of Brahmā’s existence, the supreme lord. During a single day of Brahmā, fourteen Indras, the kings of the gods, come and go; in a month, their number is four times twenty, with hundreds added. In a year, there are five thousand and forty Indras, and in the full lifespan, there are forty thousand and five hundred thousand. The day of Brahmā is also reckoned as a day for Viṣṇu, the preserver; likewise, the day of Viṣṇu is the day of Rudra, the dissolver; and the day of Rudra is the day of Īśvara, the ever-named. The same number applies to Śiva and to Sadāśiva: their lifespan, too, is counted as forty thousand and five hundred thousand. Yet, for the Supreme, who truly has no day or night, creation itself is called his day, and dissolution is called his night. In truth, for him there is neither day nor night—this is to be understood. All these measures and divisions of time are spoken for the sake of the worlds and their beings, the lords, the forms, the gods, and the asuras. During the day of the Supreme Lord, all things—the senses and their objects, the five great elements and the subtle elements, their source, and intellect, along with their presiding deities—continue to exist. But at the end of his day, all dissolve, and at the end of his night, the universe arises again. Salutations to that great Śaṅkara, the soul of the universe, whose power is action, time, and nature; by whose command alone all this is governed—a command that cannot be transgressed. Now, you may wonder: How does the Supreme Lord, having created and then withdrawn the entire world, enact his supreme play by his will? What was the first to arise? By whom is all this pervaded? And by whom is it all consumed, whose belly is vast and boundless? It is taught that Power is the first to arise, surpassing even the state beyond peace; then comes Māyā, the power of illusion, and then the unmanifest, all arising from Śiva, the lord endowed with power. From Power comes the state beyond peace, then in order, the state of peace; from that, the state of knowledge, and from that, the state of foundation arises. From the state of foundation, the state of withdrawal arises in order. Thus, in brief, the process of creation prompted by the Lord has been described. In the natural order, these arise; in reverse, they dissolve. Beyond this fivefold method, no other creator is accepted. Therefore, this entire universe is pervaded by five energies; and the unmanifest cause, which is self-established, is what is meant. It is agreed that this cause creates from the great principle down to the particular, yet neither the unmanifest nor the self has agency of its own. Because nature is insentient and the person is unknowing, everything from the primary substance to the atom is without consciousness. It is seen that an intelligent cause is necessary for action, for the world, being an effect composed of parts, requires an agent. Therefore, he who is powerful, independent, all-capable, all-knowing, without beginning or end, and endowed with supreme sovereignty—he alone is the creator of the world, the great god, the supreme lord. He is also the protector and destroyer of all; thus, the sequence is distinct. The transformation of the primary substance and the activity of the individual all occur only by the command of the ever-truthful one. This eternal conclusion abides in the minds of the wise; but those of little understanding do not act in accordance with this doctrine. From the beginning of creation until the great dissolution, all this endures for a hundred divine years of Brahmā. This is called the supreme lifespan of Brahmā, the lotus-born; its half is called 'parārdha.' At the end of two parārdhas, when dissolution arrives, the unmanifest, taking the effect of the self, remains within itself. When the unmanifest is established in the self and transformation is withdrawn, both the primary substance and the person remain together in similarity. In that state, darkness and the quality of goodness remain in equilibrium, neither increasing nor decreasing, mutually interwoven and endless. Thus, the great mystery of time, creation, and dissolution is revealed.