Verse 16

¹⁶This is handed down as the utmost span of the fathers, the gods and men. Tell me the course of those beyond them, the knowing ones who stand outside the aeon. ¹⁷Revered one, you know the course of time, and it is the Bhagavan's own. The steady look upon the whole world with an eye won by yoga. ¹⁸Krta, Treta, Dvapara and Kali are the four ages, and they are set down with care as twelve thousand years of the gods. ¹⁹Four, three, two and one: so many thousands are counted for the Krta age and the rest in their order, and twice as many hundreds again. ²⁰The time that lies between the twilight and its portion, both counted in hundreds, is what those who know it call an age, and it is in an age that dharma is laid down.

²¹In the Krta age dharma walks with men on four feet. In the others it goes away a foot at a time, as wrongdoing grows.