उपनिषद् · Kṛṣṇa 1.15
॥
देवनागरी
दया सा रोहिणी माता सत्यभामा धरेति वै । अघासुरो महाव्याधिः कलिः कंसः स भूपतिः
लिप्यंतरण (IAST)
dayā sā rohiṇī mātā satyabhāmā dhareti vai | aghāsuro mahāvyādhiḥ kaliḥ kaṃsaḥ sa bhūpatiḥ
शब्दशः अर्थ
संस्कृतIASTअर्थ
दया सा रोहिणी माताdayā sā rohiṇī mātāmercy — that mother Rohiṇī
सत्यभामा धरा इति वैsatyabhāmā dharā iti vaiSatyabhāmā — the earth, indeed
अघ-असुरः महा-व्याधिःagha-asuraḥ mahā-vyādhiḥAghāsura — a great affliction
कलिः कंसः सः भू-पतिःkaliḥ kaṃsaḥ saḥ bhū-patiḥkali — Kaṃsa, that king
अनुवाद
"Mercy is that mother Rohiṇī; Satyabhāmā is the earth; Aghāsura is a great affliction; kali is Kaṃsa, that king."
संस्करण
411f9d8fc919 · प्रकाशित 12 अग॰ 2026, 5:00:00 am UTC
उपलब्ध भाषाएँRUENश्लोक बदलें इन कुंजियों से
It is worth noting the last correspondence: kaliḥ kaṃsaḥ sa bhū-patiḥ, "kali is Kaṃsa, that king." Kali is the present age, the worst of the four; Kaṃsa is the king who persecuted Kṛṣṇa from birth. This correspondence is worth examining, for it is more precise than the rest.
Kaṃsa in the story is the one who knows the prophecy and therefore fears: he has been told that the eighth son of his sister will kill him, and he spends his whole life in dread and preemptive killings. That is, he is less a villain than a person living in terror, doing evil out of terror. The age of kali is described in the Bhāgavatam the same way: not as an age full of villains, but as an age that is manda, "sluggish," manda-bhāgya, "luckless," upadruta, "beset" (1.1.10).
That is, the chief mark of the age is not wickedness but straitness and anxiety; and the word aṃhas, "straitness," was discussed when reading the Prāṇāgnihotra (1.3). Let us add what follows from the correspondence. Kaṃsa ended by being killed by the very One he feared; and this story reads as a promise: fear ends with the coming of the One who was feared.
The Vaiṣṇava side speaks of the present age in the same vein and cites a verse cited when reading the Jābāla-darśana (2.3): "in kali there is one great virtue — by chanting alone one is liberated" (12.3.51).