Also yoog, yoogu. [Hindi yug, Skr. yugá- YOKE, an age of the world.] In Hindu cosmology, any of the four ages in the duration of the world, the four ages comprising 4,320,000 years and constituting a great yuga (Mahāyuga).
1784. W. Hastings, in Asiatick Researches (1788), I. 237. The duration of the Historical ages must needs be very unequal…; while that of the Indian Yugs is disposed so regularly and artificially, that it cannot be admitted as natural or probable.
1820. W. Ward, View Hindoos (ed. 3), IV. 315. The amount of these four yoogŭs form a mŭhu or great yoogŭ, viz. 4,320,000 years.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XVI. 207/2. The Hindu doctrine of the four ages or yuga.
