CHAPTER III
(AN ACCOUNT OF KALI-YUGA)
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 cycle 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 read 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. Impelled by covetuousness and false-hood 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 Brāhmanas 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 Brāhmanas 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)."
Source: https://archive.org/details/AProseEnglishTranslationOfHarivamsh
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