Question: For this kalpa, Hamsa is the sveta form, Mahaprabhu pita, Krishna himself the shyama, which is the rakta form? Yajna is the red form in Svayambhavu Manu’s period. Also, do these four forms appear in every kalpa? For example, I heard that Krsna and Mahaprabhu appear once in the lifetime of Brahma. Then, in other kalpas, which is yellow form? or even shyama form (Lord Ramachandra himself)?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
A kalpa is one day of Brahma, which consists of a thousand cycles of four yugas or ages: Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali.
Krsna descends to this planet and performs His Vrndavan lila once in a day of Brahma, not once in a lifetime of Brahma. During the other 999 yuga cycles in each day of Brahma, the Lord appears as Vasudeva Krsna; during that time He does not display his Vrndavan pastimes.
In the Treta yuga, the red avatara who appeared to Brahma to establish fire sacrifice as the process for self-realization is Yajnapati. [Letter to: Surasrestha, 14 June, 1972]
At the end of the Dvāpara-yuga of the twenty-eighth divya-yuga of Vaivasvata Manu, Lord Kṛṣṇa appears on earth with the full paraphernalia of His eternal Vraja-dhāma.
Srila Prabhupada writes in the below purport to CC Adi-lila 3.10:
“Now is the term of Vaivasvata Manu, during which Lord Caitanya appears. First Lord Kṛṣṇa appears at the close of the Dvāpara-yuga of the twenty-eighth divya-yuga, and then Lord Caitanya appears in the Kali-yuga of the same divya-yuga. Lord Kṛṣṇa and Lord Caitanya appear once in each day of Brahmā, or once in fourteen manvantaras, each of seventy-one divya-yugas in duration.
From the beginning of Brahmā’s day of 4,320,000,000 years, six Manus appear and disappear before Lord Kṛṣṇa appears. Thus 1,975,320,000 years of the day of Brahmā elapse before the appearance of Lord Kṛṣṇa. This is an astronomical calculation according to solar years”
Lord Caitanya also appears in His original form and teaches the highest mellows of pure love for Krishna only once in a day of Brahma — in the Kali yuga immediately following the appearance of Lord Krishna in His original form, which happens to be the present age! But just as a plenary portion of Krishna appears in every Dvapara, similarly in every Kali yuga a form of the Lord appears as the yuga-avatar to teach the process of congregational chanting of the Holy Names.”
