श्राद्धावसाने तु तदा दृष्ट्वा तं दुःखितं जनम् ॥
संमूढां दुःखशोकार्तां व्यासो मातरम् अब्रवीत् ॥
अतिक्रान्तसुखाः कालाः प्रत्युपस्थितदारुणाः ॥
श्वः श्वः पापीयदिवसाः पृथिवी गतयौवना ॥
बहुमायासमाकीर्णो नानादोषसमाकुलः ॥
लुप्तधर्मक्रियाचारो घोरः कालो भविष्यति ॥
गच्छ त्वं त्यागम् आस्थाय युक्ता वस तपोवने ॥
मा द्रक्ष्यसि कुलस्यास्य घोरं संक्षयम् आत्मनः ॥
śrāddhāvasāne tu tadā dṛṣṭvā taṃ duḥkhitaṃ janam ||
saṃmūḍhāṃ duḥkhaśokārtāṃ vyāso mātaram abravīt ||
atikrāntasukhāḥ kālāḥ pratyupasthitadāruṇāḥ ||
śvaḥ śvaḥ pāpīyadivasāḥ pṛthivī gatayauvanā ||
bahumāyāsamākīrṇo nānādoṣasamākulaḥ ||
luptadharmakriyācāro ghoraḥ kālo bhaviṣyati ||
gaccha tvaṃ tyāgam āsthāya yuktā vasa tapovane ||
mā drakṣyasi kulasyāsya ghoraṃ saṃkṣayam ātmanaḥ ||
Vyasa said: 'Upon the completion of the shraddha, seeing that grieving people, Vyasa said to the mother, bewildered and tormented by grief and sorrow: "The happy times have passed, the terrible ones are approaching; day by day the days grow worse; the earth has lost its youth. A time full of much deceit, filled with various vices, with the rites and customs of dharma lost, a terrible age will come. Go, having taken up renunciation, composed, dwell in the forest of austerity; may you not see the terrible destruction of your own line."'
30c89f863094 · published Jul 12, 2026, 4:41:49 PM UTC
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Here Vyasa, the seer, proclaims the coming of the Kali age and the impending ruin of the line. Telling is the description of the terrible age: 'the days grow worse,' the earth 'has lost its youth,' deceit and vices multiply, the rites and customs of dharma are lost. This is an exact foretelling of the present Kali age, of which the Bhagavatam and this epic itself speak at length: an age of the decline of dharma, of falsehood and strife. Telling, too, is Vyasa's compassion for his mother: knowing what is to come, he leads her away so that she need not witness the destruction of her own descendants. Here too is the wisdom of renunciation: when an unavoidable calamity draws near, it is better for the righteous to withdraw into austerity than to grieve in vain amid the doomed. So the scripture, through Vyasa's words, casts the shadow of the coming catastrophe over the whole story that follows.