Treta Yuga (tretā-yuga)

The Treta Yuga is the second age, in which dharma stands on three legs and sacrifice becomes the central means of maintaining order. It is the age of Rama, whose story the sage Markandeya tells the exiled Pandavas as a consolation, pointing out that a greater man than Yudhishthira also lost a kingdom and a wife. Because the Ramayana is set here, the Mahabharata treats the Treta Yuga as recent enough to remember and distant enough to idealise.