230 SURG.-GEN. C. A. GORDON, M.D., C.B., ETC., ON 
mortal man when felled by the hand of death? Who can 
make him spring again to birth? God, who is perfect 
wisdom, perfect happiness.” So wrote the sages of ancient 
India. 
With reference-to this part of our subject, the remark 
seems appropriate that, according to the chronology of the 
Hindoos, of the four Yugs or Ages pertaining to man’s 
existence, three have already passed away, namely, the 
Satya, the Treta,and the Dwapar, the fourth, or Kali* being 
that which is now in progress. The several periods so 
named are believed to correspond respectively with the 
Golden, the Silver, the Brazen, and the Iron ages of Greek 
and Roman classical writer s, and like them to express a pro- 
gressive decline from purity to baseness; otherwise a retro- 
gressive process in man from a higher to a lower condition 
of intellectual and moral standing. Thus Satya means 
truth and probity. During the age so named, and the two 
succeeding, the Brahmins tell us that “Men were greatly 
superior to the present race, not only in the length of their 
lives, but in the powers of their bodily and mental faculties ; 
but, in consequence of vice, they gradually declined, and, at 
last, in this the Earthen age or Kali yug, degenerated to 
what we now see them.’f 
The entire system of mythology of ancient India is _com- 
prised in the two great epic poems in which is vividiy 
pictured life as it then was among the predecessors of the 
races whom it is customary to designate our Aryan 
brethren. ‘The poems in question are well described by a 
modern writer in these terms :—* They are the charm which 
has stayed the course of time in India, and they will probably 
continue for ages yet to come to reflect the morning star of 
* The commencement of the Kali yug is considered to date from 
2 o'clock, 27 minutes, and 30 seconds, a.m., 16th February, B.c. 3109. 
According to M. Bailly, there occurred at that time a conjunction of the 
planets. But the astronomical time of the Brahmins is dated from an 
eclipse of the moon, which appears to have happened then. According to 
some writers, the circumstance which marked the period was the death of 
Krishna, otherwise Vishnu, in one of his incarnations. Others assign the 
date to the time of death of a famous and beloved sover eign, Yudhisthira. 
Whichever of these explanations be the correct one, if either, the 
Hindoos evidently looked upon the event referred to as a great calamity ; 
they distinguished it by beginning a a new age, to which, as an expression 
of their feelings, they gave “the name alr eady mentioned, otherwise “the 
age of unhappiness or misfortune.” 
“+ Craufurd, vol. i. pp. 174, 216; vol. ii, p. 6. 
t Birdwood, Arts of Jrdia, vol. i, p. 33. 
A wie 
