In this essay we will compare the system of chronology described in the Vedic literatures of India with the chronological system devised by geologists and paleontologists to date the history of life on the earth. Since the time of Charles Lyell in the mid-nineteenth century, geologists have accepted that the history of the earth must be measured in millions or even hundreds of millions of years--a view that contrasts sharply with earlier Christian chronology that set the date of the earth's creation at about 4,004 B. C. At the present time geologists estimate that the earth has existed for some 4.6 billion years, and that highly organized life forms have existed for about 600 million years.

It is not so widely known that the Vedic literatures of India, such as the Bhagavad-Gita and the Srimad-Bhagavatam, also give an account of history that extends over hundreds of millions and even billions of years. The Vedic and geological systems of chronology have completely different origins, but they divide time into broadly similar subdivisions, and thus it is natural to ask whether or not they have anything in common. In this essay we will present some evidence indicating that these two chronological systems can, in fact, be correlated with one another in a very precise way.