Sashi Tharoor

 “The Hindu concept of time is very different from Western ideas. In Hindu thought, the world has no beginning and no end, but only experiences endless repetitive cycles of time in four yugas (aeons or ages): Satya Yuga, the age of truth, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga (the age of destruction and untruth, the one in which we are all living now). Each Kali Yuga ends with a great flood (pralaya) that destroys the world, only to start afresh with a new Satya Yuga. Some Hindus argue that Vaishnavites and Shaivites differ in their perception of time; after all, Vishnu is reincarnated in various avatars, while Shiva simply ‘is’. Vaishnavites, in this reading, are constantly changing through time, while Shaivites are focused on the annihilation of the self. Though the distinction is interesting, both sets of Hindus relate to time very differently from followers of other faiths.”