Time units of ancient India

While several systems of time measurement are documented in ancient Indian texts, most, use the nimesha as the smallest unit. This unit is defined as the time required for the winking of an eye.

In ancient India, time was referred to as kala. It was considered eternal, implying that it had no beginning or end. Interestingly, ancient Indians devised numerous units to measure time in quantities ranging from microseconds to trillions of years. Perhaps ancient Indians knew more units of time than the average modern person!

While several systems of time measurement are documented in ancient Indian texts, most, such as the Puranas, Manusmriti and Mahabharata, use the nimesha as the smallest unit. This unit is defined as the time required for the winking of an eye. Fifteen nimeshas make up one kashtha, 30 kashthas one kala, 30 kalas make one muhurta and 30 muhurtas make up one day. Since we know that one day has 24 hours, we can work backwards to find these measures in modern units. A muhurta equals 48 minutes, a kala corresponds to 96 seconds, a kashtha equates to 3.2 seconds and a nimesha is 0.2 seconds. However, the nimesha is not the only smallest unit of time mentioned. The Natyashastra states that a nimesha is composed of eight kashthas, with each kashtha equaling 26 milliseconds. A kashtha consists of eight lavas, with each lava measuring three milliseconds. A lava is made up of eight kshanas, where each kshana is 400 microseconds. The unit kshana is still commonly used, albeit vaguely, to denote a very small amount of time, though in ancient times, it was defined as the time taken for a needle to pierce through a hundred lotus petals stacked one on top of the other.

Units for large measurements of time also abound in ancient Indian texts. Thirty days make up a month, while 12 months create a human year. One human year is equivalent to one day of the gods; thus, a year of the gods is equal to 360 human years. Moreover, 12,000 years of the gods correspond to one chaturyuga, which totals 4,320,000 human years. Seventy-one chaturyugas comprise a manvantara—a period of 306,720,000 years during which one person holds the post of Manu. The units extend to the lifespan of Brahma, which is equal to 311 trillion human years! A chaturyuga consists of four yugas—Satya, Treta, Dwapara and Kali. To determine their lengths, divide the chaturyuga by 10, then multiply it by 4 for Satya, 3 for Treta, 2 for Dwapara and 1 for Kali. Consequently, the lengths of the four yugas come out to 1,728,000, 1,296,000, 864,000 and 432,000 human years, respectively. In the year 2025, Kaliyuga is 5,126 years old, leaving 426,874 more years to go!

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