A Question Across Time

Shri Krishna reveals that the wisdom he has been imparting to Arjun, the science of Yog, the path of selfless action, the nature of knowledge, the discipline of the mind, and the secret of freedom from attachment is not a philosophy meant only for Arjun’s dilemma.

It is timeless.

Shri Krishna tells Arjun that this eternal Yog was first taught to Vivasvan, the Sun God. Vivasvan transmitted it to Manu, the progenitor of mankind, and Manu passed it on to Iksvaku, the first king of the solar dynasty.

Thus, this wisdom was preserved through a lineage of enlightened teachers, guiding humanity from the very dawn of civilization. The Bhagavad Gita is not introducing a new philosophy, it is restoring an ancient one.

Arjun was genuinely perplexed. He knew that Vivasvan, the Sun God, belonged to an age long before the present one. Yet Shri Krishna stood before him as a friend, a cousin, and his charioteer born in the Yadu dynasty. How, then, could Shri Krishna claim to have instructed Vivasvan at the very dawn of creation?

Cosmic Cycles

Our minds are accustomed to measuring history in decades, centuries, or at most a few thousand years. The Vedic scriptures invite us to think on an entirely different scale.

The Vedic scriptures describe time as a continuous progression, beginning with extraordinarily small units and expanding into immense cosmic cycles.

A truti is described as one of the smallest units of time.

Traditional texts speak of 300 trutis forming one bodh, three bodhs making one luv, three luvs one pal, three pals one nimesa, three nimesas one ksana, five ksanas one laghu, fifteen laghus one kastha, fifteen kasthas one ghadi, and two ghadis one muhurta. Six muhurtas constitute a prahara, eight praharas complete a day, seven days a week, two weeks a fortnight, two fortnights a month, two months a season, three seasons an ayana, and two ayanas together form a year.

From the measure of a single human year, the scriptures expand the concept of time into Yugs. Four Yugs — Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali, together constitute one Mahayug, lasting 4.32 million human years.

Seventy-one Mahayugs form one Manvantara, the age of a Manu. Fourteen Manvantaras make up one Kalpa, a single day in the life of Brahma, spanning 4.32 billion human years.

After each day comes an equally long cosmic night, during which the manifest universe returns to an unmanifest state.

Three hundred and sixty such days and nights constitute one year of Brahma, and Brahma lives for one hundred such years, a lifespan extending over 311.04 trillion human years.

According to the Puranic chronology, we are presently in the Sveta-Varaha Kalpa, the seventh Manvantara (Vaivasvata Manvantara), the twenty-eighth Mahayug, and within it, the Kali Yug.

When viewed against this immense backdrop of time, Arjun’s astonishment becomes completely understandable. Shri Krishna was not referring to an event in the distant past measured by centuries or even thousands of years, but to a teaching imparted at the very beginning of the present Manvantara.

Unable to reconcile the realities of the scale of time around cosmic cycles, Arjun respectfully sought clarification. Shri Krishna’s answer begins by revealing a fundamental distinction between the individual soul and the Supreme Lord.

बहूनि मे व्यतीतानि जन्मानि तव चार्जुन ।
तान्यहं वेद सर्वाणि न त्वं वेत्थ परन्तप ॥

Bhagavad Gita 4.5

“Many births have passed for both you and Me, O Arjun. I remember them all, but you do not.”

With these few words, Shri Krishna gently lifts the conversation from the level of history to the level of metaphysics. He does not deny that both he and Arjun have appeared in many births. What distinguishes them is not the fact of birth, but the nature of their consciousness.

Every embodied being has lived through countless births. Yet with each new birth, the memories of previous lives are erased by Maya, leaving them identified with the present body and personality.

Shri Krishna, however, is not subject to such limitations. Though he appears in the world, his knowledge is never obscured. He remains fully aware of every manifestation, every age, and every event across time.

The individual soul and the Supreme Lord are both eternal, yet there is a profound difference between them.

The individual soul, though eternal, becomes veiled by Maya upon taking birth. It identifies with the body, forgets its previous lives, and remains limited in knowledge.

The Supreme Lord, on the other hand, though he appears within creation, his knowledge remains complete and unobscured. He remembers every manifestation, every age, and every event across the vast expanse of time.

The soul forgets, God never forgets.

This simple distinction begins to resolve Arjun’s confusion. But it also raises an even deeper question — if the Supreme Lord is unborn, eternal, and beyond the limitations of time, how does he appear to take birth at all?