¶1 Hindu doctrine teaches that the duration of a human cycle, to which it gives the name of Manvantara, is divided into four ages, which mark so many phases of a gradual obscuring of primordial spirituality; these are the same periods that the traditions of Western antiquity, on their side, designated as the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages.1 We are presently in the fourth age, the Kali-Yuga or ‘Dark Age’, and we have been there, it is said, for more than six thousand years already, that is to say, since an epoch long before all those known to ‘classical’ history.2 Since then, the truths that were formerly accessible to all men have become more and more hidden and difficult to attain; those who possess them are fewer and fewer, and, if the treasure of ‘non-human’ wisdom, anterior to all ages, can never be lost, it becomes wrapped in increasingly impenetrable veils, which conceal it from sight and beneath which it is extremely difficult to discover.3 This is why there is everywhere talk, under various symbols, of something that has been lost, in appearance at least and in relation to the external world, and that must be found by those who aspire to true knowledge; but it is also said that what is thus hidden will become visible again at the end of this cycle, which will be at the same time, by virtue of the continuity that links all things together, the beginning of a new cycle.4
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manvantarakali-yuga

Summary

Guénon explains that Hindu doctrine divides a human cycle called Manvantara into four ages, corresponding to the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages of Western antiquity. We are now in the fourth age, the Kali-Yuga or Dark Age, which has already lasted more than six thousand years, long before classical history. Since then, truths once accessible to all have become hidden and difficult to attain. Those who possess them are fewer, and the treasure of non-human wisdom, though never lost, becomes wrapped in impenetrable veils. This is why, under various symbols, there is talk of something lost in appearance that seekers of true knowledge must rediscover. Guénon adds that what is hidden will become visible again at the end of this cycle, which will also mark the beginning of a new cycle.

General notes

  1. Manvantara — Sanskrit term designating the period of a Manu (the progenitor of humanity in Hindu cosmology). A Manvantara lasts about 308 million years and is divided into four yugas (ages). Guénon uses Hindu doctrine as a paradigmatic reference, but he constantly insists on its universality: the same cyclical laws are found in all traditions, under different names. The Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages of Greco-Roman tradition (Hesiod, Ovid, etc.) are rigorously homologous to the Satya-Yuga, Treta-Yuga, Dvapara-Yuga and Kali-Yuga. The Golden Age (Satya-Yuga) is that of full and immediate spiritual knowledge; the Iron Age (Kali-Yuga) is that of maximum obscuration, where spirituality is accessible only to an elite. ↩︎
  2. Kali-Yuga — Guénon refers to traditional Hindu chronology, according to which the Kali-Yuga began in 3102 BCE (often associated with the death of Krishna and the beginning of the Mahabharata). At the time he was writing (first half of the 20th century), that amounted to about five thousand years. The important point is to emphasise that modernity is only the last segment of this dark age, and that present-day Western civilisation is only a late episode of a long period. 'Classical' history (Greece, Rome) covers only a small fragment of the Kali-Yuga. ↩︎
  3. sagesse « non humaine », antérieure à tous les âges — Rendered as 'non-human wisdom, anterior to all ages'. Guénon here distinguishes between human wisdom (relative, contingent, historical) and primordial wisdom ('non-human', i.e., of transcendent origin, prior to any cyclical manifestation). This wisdom is often identified with the sophia perennis, the primordial tradition, which was not 'invented' by men but 'revealed' at the beginning of the cycle. It cannot be lost, for its origin is divine, but it can become hidden, veiled, inaccessible to profane eyes. This is the meaning of the symbol of the 'hidden treasure' in many traditions. ↩︎
  4. cachement et réapparition à la fin du cycle — Rendered as 'hiding and reappearance at the end of the cycle'. Guénon here evokes a universal cyclical schema: at the beginning of the cycle (Golden Age), truth is fully manifest; it gradually veils itself until it becomes almost inaccessible (Dark Age); at the end of the cycle, for those who are capable of it, it is revealed anew, before a new cycle begins. This schema is found in Hindu doctrine of the avatara (divine incarnations at the end of each yuga), in Christianity (the Second Coming of Christ), in Islam (the return of the Mahdi), in Hermeticism (the cyclical revelation of the Asclepius), etc. It is not a matter of going backwards (restoration of a past state), but of re-adaptation to the conditions of the new cycle. ↩︎