{"id":262,"date":"2021-01-11T12:46:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T04:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nusartsfestival:8888\/?p=262"},"modified":"2021-02-18T11:17:29","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T03:17:29","slug":"kala-and-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/kala-and-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"K\u0101la and Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Central to Hindu notion of <em>k\u0101la<\/em> or time is the <em>yuga<\/em>, or, an epoch. Four such yugas put together comprise a single cycle \u2013 a <em>chatur yuga<\/em> \u2013 of the existence of the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first <em>yuga<\/em> is the<em> Satya Yug<\/em>a &#8211; the noblest of <em>yugas<\/em>, where gods \u2013 devas \u2013 govern all of humanity, and all humans are righteous and pure. The only conflicts that occur, happen between the heavenly <em>devas<\/em>, and the <em>asuras<\/em> \u2013 the demons \u2013 of the underworld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next <em>yuga<\/em> is the <em>Treta Yuga<\/em> \u2013 in which humanity begins to go off the path of righteousness. A major conflict in this <em>yuga<\/em> in the current <em>chatur yuga<\/em> took the form of the first great Hindu epic, the <em>Ramayana<\/em> \u2013 where Vishnu (one of the Gods in the Hindu Trinity) as King Rama, fought the demon ruler of Lanka \u2013 a site attributed to the present day country of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The third <em>yuga<\/em> is the <em>Dwapara Yuga<\/em> \u2013 in which humanity falters even further. The <em>Mahabharata<\/em>, the second of the great Hindu epics, took place during this epoch, in which Vishnu takes the form of Krishna and aids the Pandavas in defeating their cousins, the Kauravas in a famous battle fought in Kurukshetra, a city that today lies in the northern Indian state of Haryana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fourth and the final <em>yuga<\/em> is the <em>Kali Yuga<\/em> (no relation to the Goddess Kali) \u2013 which represents the absolute nadir of human righteousness. This <em>yuga<\/em> in the current <em>chatur yuga<\/em> began with the end of the Mahabharata, and is the the epoch that we are supposed to be living in at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An interesting trend emerges from a cursory analysis of the conflicts during each of these <em>yugas<\/em>. The <em>Satya Yuga<\/em> witnessed battles between the <em>devas<\/em> and the <em>asuras<\/em>, between the inhabitants of two different worlds &#8211; the heavens, and the underworld. The<em> Treta Yuga<\/em> witnessed battles within the same world, but between warring tribes or peoples. The<em> Dwapara Yuga<\/em>, went a step further and witnessed conflict within a single family of the same people, pitching cousins against each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If one follows this trend, one arrives at a fairly obvious conclusion regarding the nature of conflicts in our present age. That is, in the <em>Kali Yuga<\/em>, the defining conflicts are within an individual. Between the better <em>devas<\/em> of our nature. And the inner <em>asuras<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Central to Hindu notion of k\u0101la or time is the yuga, or, an epoch. Four such yugas put together comprise a single cycle \u2013 a chatur yuga \u2013 of the existence of the universe. The first yuga is the Satya Yuga &#8211; the noblest of yugas, where gods \u2013 devas \u2013 govern all of humanity, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407,"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfa.nus.edu.sg\/naf2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}