At the moment we are in the seventh of these 14 periods of the present kalpa. Each of these is divided into 71 great intervals and each of these is divided into 4 yugas or periods of time. The yugas contain respectively 4,800, 3,600, 2,400 and 1,200 god-years (one god-year being 360 human years), and there is a progressive decline in the quality of civilization.

We are now in the fourth of these yugas, the kaliyuga when the world is full of evil and wickedness, and thus the end of the world is by comparison imminent, though there are several millennia before the end. The kaliyuga is also associated with the coming of Kalkin, the tenth incarnation of Vishnu.