191. Kali-yuga described
JANAMEJAYA said:—When the whole world will thus be sullied, by whom men will be protected? How will they behave? What will they take and how will they enjoy?
What will be their actions and endeavours? How long will they live? And meeting with what end will they attain to Satya-Yuga? (1–2).
VYASA said:—When religion will be shaken and good conduct will be extinct, men, shorn of accomplishments, will be short-lived. With the decrease of the duration of life, there will be decay of strength.
It will lead to the perversity of colour which will produce deseases. This will give birth to repentence which will beget the consciousness of the God.
And this will produce again virtue. With this end they will attain to the Satya Yuga. Some, observing virtue in words only, will grow indifferent and some, being conscentious, will, with curiosity, enquire into causes.
Having their minds freed from doubts, some men, proud of their learning, will find out unity between inference and evidence (3–7).
Others will disprove the Vedas. The wicked and ignorant men, proud of their learning, will be athiests. They will be proud and divorced from the knowledge of Sastras. They will have reverence for the apparent meaning and be fond of discussions.
When at the revolution of the cycle religion will be shaken people will follow the last (Vishnu's) dispensation; and with gifts and truthfulness they will perform many merciful acts (8-11).
During that period people will eat every sort of things, be of uncontrolled senses, devoid of accomplishments and shameless. Know this as the consummate sign of sinfulness.
When the Kshatriyas and other orders, will resort to begging, the eternal means of subsistence unto the Brāhmanas, for their livelihood know it as the sign that sin has set in.
When this cycle, destructive of knowledge and learning, will be filled with sin, people, leading the life of celebacy, will attain to the consummation of spiritualism within a short time.
In the last cycle will take place great wars, great tumults, great showers and fears: know these to be the signs of sinfulness.
In the end of the Yuga the Rākshasas will assume the forms of the Brāhmanas and the kings, bent upon speaking harsh words, will enjoy the earth.
When men, divorced from the study of the Vedas, celebration of sacrifices and morals, proud, avaricious, eating all, performing useless rites, stupid, selfish, covetous, putting on worthless dresses, mean, deviating from the eternal religion, the stealers of other's riches, the ravishers of others' wives, lustful, wicked, deceiptful and brave, will be born with equal character the various ascetics will hide themselves (12–20).
With words men will worship those persons, devoted to the God, who were born in the Krita age (21).
Men will steal corns, raiments, edibles and even dry cow dung (22).
The thieves will steal the property of other thieves and murderers will kill other murderers. When thieves will kill the other thieves people will fare well (23).
When the world will be impoverished, oppressed and divorced from evening prayers and when all the orders will live in the same style men, pressed down by the weight of taxes, will retire into woods (24).
The sons will engage the father in all works and the daughter-in-law will make the mother-in law work. And when sacrifices will be stopped the disciples will pain the preceptor with wordy shafts.
The Rākshasas, the voracious animals, insects, mice and serpents will injure men.
O king, in the close of the cycle, peace, prosperity, health, friends and literature of the people will suffer decrease. Being themselves their own masters and thieves, kings, loaded with the miseries of the cycle, will roam in circles in various countries.
Travelling in their own countries and growing useless, men, with their friends, will await the appointed time (25–29).
Assailed with fear and hunger and carrying their sons on their shoulders men will cross the Koushiki and seek shelter in the provinces of Anga, Banga, Kalinga, Kashmira, Mekala and Rishikāntagiri.
Men will live with the Mlechchas on the sides of the Himalaya, the bank of the ocean of salt water or in the forests. The earth will be shorn and yet not shorn of its inhabitants.
Although armed the guards will not do their duties. Men will live on deer, fish, birds, beasts of prey, serpents, insects, vegetables, fruits and roots (30–34).
Like Munis men will collect themselves and put on bark, leaves and deer-skin. Although living in mountain caves they will grow anxious for knowing and eating paddy growing in villages or in the forest. They will with care rear up sheep, goats, asses and camels (35-36).
Living on the bank of rivers for water they will obstruct the currents. And they will sell and buy cooked food amongst themselves. For taking their own shares the sons will fight over the capital.
Under the influence of the age people will have children, have none and will be shorn of the good marks of their families.
People, in that cycle, will follow a degraded faith preached by a degraded person. The duration of a man’s life will be thirty years.
And attacked by fever they will grow weak and lose their wealth; their physical organs will be enfeebled by diseases and they will be visited by sorrow consequent upon the decrease of their longivity.
They will be busily engaged with visiting and serving the pious and on account of the wane of their conduct they will attain to Satya-Yuga.
They will practise pious rites because they will not get objects of desire; and they will shrink from committing oppressions on account of their weakness proceeding from the destruction of their own men (37-43).
Thus making gifts, observing truth and cherishing re verence for the safety of their own lives they will satisfy the four-fold duties and meet with well-being.
Amongst those men rolling with the senses and their objects, some will acquire the true knowledge and say “whether virtue or death has sweet fruits.”
As decline gradually takes place so does advancement. Afterwards when religion will be completely followed by men Krita-yuga will set in.
As the moon increases in the light half of the month and decreases in the dark half, so good conduct multiplies in the Krita-Yuga and suffers decrease in the Kali.
However the time is one: according to increase and decrease, Satya, Treta, Dwāpara and Kali are its four stages.
As the moon is enshrouded by darkness in the dark fortnight and becomes full in the light fortnight so virtue increases in the Satya and decreases in the Kali Yuga.
As a man does not regard an ancestral lump of gold covered with dust as gold and thinks himself poor, and again considers himself rich when he finds it gold after it is cleansed, so when the great soul is covered with Māyā pervaded by the quality of darkness, men call it a creature and when it is divorced from Māya they call it pure intelligence.
It is thus said in the Vedas and the learned men also have explained its meaning. By penances having heaven etc., for their object, eternal fruits are begotten: these fruits produce gunas or qualities and thus their actions are accomplished.
By these truthful actions even body is not liberated. The fruits of actions follow the country, time and worthy person in various Yugas: and thus difference is seen in them.
So the Rishis have said: in various cycles differences in worldly profit, objects of desire, adoration of the deities and duration of life, are created.
As according to the nature of the Providence the revolution of cycles takes place, so the rise and decay takes place in the world which cannot stand inactive even for a moment (44–53).
190. An account of Kali-Yyuga
JANAMEJAYA said:—I do not know whether the time for Moksha (emancipation) is distant or near. Therefore I wish to know about the cycle of Kali which has followed Dwāpara struck with the arrows of virtue and sin.
With deeds easily performed we will acquire virtue. Stricken with this desire we have been born in this Kali-yuga (1-2).
SHOUNAKA said “O thou conversant with religion the cyle of Kali, a source of trouble to the creatures and the destruction of virtue, is about to set in. Do thou therefore describe it with its characteristics (3).
SHOUTI said:—Thus accosted the Divine Vyāsa accurately thought of the condition of men in the Kali-yuga and began to describe the future cycle (4).
VYASA said:—When Kali will set in the kings, incapable of protecting their subjects, will only guard themselves busily exacting tributes from them.
At the end of this cycle the kings will not act like the Kshatriyas, the Brāhmanas will carry on their livelihood like the Sudras and the Sudras will behave like the Brāhmanas.
O Janamejaya, at the end of this cycle the Brāhmanas, well tread in Srutis and Vedas, will take up arrows and Havi will be divorced from sacrifices and all people will take their meals in the same row.
When the last of the cycles Kali will appear men will be artizans, untruthful, fond of wine and meat and know the wives of their friends.
In the Kali Yuga the thieves will fare like the kings and the kings will act like thieves and the servants will enjoy unfixed incomes.
In the last cycle wealth will be spoken of highly, the character of the pious will be despised and the fallen will not be censured.
The widows, divorced from the consciousness of virtue and sin, the ascetics and men of fifteen years of age will procreate offspring through promiscuous intercourse.
In that last cycle the villagers will sell food, the Brāhmanas will sell the Vedas, and the women will sell their persons.
In this cycle all will read the Vedas and celebrate Vajasaneyi sacrifices and the Sudras will (boldly) address all as “O”. The Sudras following the tenets of Buddha will abstain from taking meat.
And with white teeth, keen observation and shaving their heads and wearing silk raiments they will practise religion (5-15).
The Mlechchas will live in the province of Kurupānchāla and people of that country will live in that of the former. In the end of the cycle men will go downwards.
The Brāhmanas will sell the fruits of Tapas and sacrifices and the seasons will be perverted. The beasts, with tusks and teeth, will be set to ploughs and carts: men will till with the water of ponds and the clouds will irregularly discharge their contents.
The thieves will steal the wealth of one another and wretched men will be rich acquiring very little money.
In this last cycle men will be divorced from religious rites, the divisions of the land will abound in deserts, and the cities will be traversed by many roads.
In the Kali yuga every body will become a merchant and the sons will divide the ancestral gifts. Impelied by covetuousness and falsehood people will fight with one another and rob their wealth.
In the absence of beauty, personal grace and ornaments the women will be only adorned with hairs (16-22).
In this last cycle, men, divorced from all objects of enjoyment, as garlands, sandal, etc., will find pleasure only in their wives (22–23).
When the wicked and non-aryans will multiply, when the number of males will decrease, and dis-proportionate to it that of women will increase know this as the real sign of the end of the cycle.
Then every body will be a beggar: and no one will give alms. Without distinction people will accept gifts from other Varnas (orders). And afflicted by the king, thieves and fire, people will meet with extinction.
In this last cycle people will not get crops, youthful persons will be visited by decrepitude and people will be unhappy for their bad ambition.
Blowing high and downwards the wind will shower dust in the rany season and people will feel doubts about the next world. Every one will be wicked by nature, will villify the God and be egoistic: being covetous the Brahmanas will blame others.
Adopting the ways of the Vaishyas the Kshatriyas will maintain themselves by cultivation and trade and the Brāhmanas will destroy the dignity of religion (24-29).
In the end of the cycle men will not observe their vows and promise. And what to speak of their satisfying their own debts, they will, for it, even cast off courtesy.
Fruitless will be a man’s joy and fruitful will be his anger. For milk the sheep will be regarded.
In the end of the cycle, men, shorn of the knowledge of scriptures, will naturally behave thus. Disregarding moral laws, men, proud of their own learning, will interpret the Sastras.
When the last cycle will set in every one, without the instruction of their elders, will acquire knowledge in all branches and there will be no one who will not be a poet.
Deviating from their right duties the Brāhmanas will turn out astrologers and the kings will become thieves (30–34).
In the end of the cycle those men, who will co-habit with bastard women, be deceiptful and drunkards, will be Brahmavadins and celebrate horse sacrifices.
Eager for acquiring riches the Brahmanas will officiate as priests for unworthy persons and partake of the forbidden food.
Every one will recite “Bho!” and no one will study the Vedas. The women will put on one conch-bangle and use an ornament of the shape of a paddy.
The stars will not be united with proper planets, the quarters will be contrary-the appearance of an evening and burning will always be seen.
The son will engage his father in works and the daughter-in-law will order her mother-in-law. Men will co-habit with beasts and women of different castes.
The disciples will wound their preceptors with wordy shafts and men, maddened, will speak many things. Without offering the first four oblations to the gods the Agnihotris will take their meals; and without offering food to their guests, men will eat themselves.
Deceiving their sleeping husbands the women will visit other men, and men too, leaving their sleeping wives, will go to other women.
When the cycle will run out people will be visited with diseases, mental agony and envy and they will not remedy their own actions (35–43).
