Chapter 4 - Kali-yuga Described

1-2. 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?.

3-7. 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 diseases. 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 conscientious, 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.

8-11. Others will disprove the Vedas. The wicked and ignorant men, proud of their learning, will be atheists. 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.

12-20. 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 Brahmanas, 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 celibacy, 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 Rakshasas will assume the forms of the Brahmanas 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.

21. With words men will worship those persons, devoted to the God, who were born in the Krita age.

22. Men will steal corns, raiments, edibles and even dry cow-dung.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25-29. 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 Rakshasas, 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.

30-34. Assailed with fear and hunger and carrying their sons on their shoulders men will cross the Kaushiki and seek shelter in the provinces of Anga, Banga, Kalinga, Kashmira, Mekala and Rishikantagiri. Men will live with the Mleccas 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.

35-36. 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.

37-43. 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 longevity. 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.

44-53. Thus making gifts, observing truth and cherishing reverence 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, Dvapara 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 Maya pervaded by the quality of darkness, men call it a creature and when it is divorced from Maya 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.