The cycle known in India as the…

The cycle known in India as the Kali-yuga, which is to last four hundred and thirty two thousand years, begins, according to one tradition, on February 18, 3102 BCE. (This point marks the end of the Dvapara Yuga, after which the epic heroes of the Mahabharata, the Pandavas, retire to the Himalayas.)

One view places 3102 as the date of the disappearance of Krishna, celebrated in the Mahabharata as an avatar of Vishnu (a form of the Sun God in the Vedas, and frequently viewed in the later Hindu trinity as the preserver and protector of the world).