History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.732

v4.c63.t2.732

¹⁷⁵⁴ It would be interesting to compare the descriptions of Kali given in the Mahābhārata and the several Purāṇas. Some verses are common to several of them and the ideas are almost the same throughout. The principal counts in the indictment are that there will be śūdra and Mleccha kings, that heretical sects will predominate, that the ordered duties and privileges of the several castes will be turned topsyturvy and there will be great physical and moral decline. After Vanaparva chap. 188 there is an additional description in chap. 190 of what will happen in the Kali age, which appears, from the express words of Vanaparva 191. 16, to have been taken from the Vāyupurāṇa. So this chapter is a later interpolation. The verse अहशूला &c. occurs again in Vanaparva 190. 52 and also in Harivaṁśa (Bhaviṣyaparva 3. 12), Brahmapurāṇa 230. 11, Matsya 47. 258. Two characteristic verses are: शुक्लदन्ता जिताक्षाश्च मुण्डाः काषायवाससः । शूद्रा धर्मं वदिष्यन्ति शाक्यबुद्धोपजीविनः ॥ (ब्रह्मपुराण 230. 13, वायु 58. 59, ब्रह्माण्ड II. 31. 59-60, Harivaṁśa, Bhaviṣyaparva 3. 15) and देवस्थानेषु चैत्येषु नागानामालयेषु च । एडूकचिह्ना पृथिवी न देवगृहभूषिता ॥ वनपर्व 190. 67. The first says that śūdras with white teeth and (professing to have) curbed their senses, with the head shaved and wearing ochre-coloured robes and maintaining themselves on false doctrines will propound dharma. This is a direct attack on Buddhist monks taken from the class of śūdras. The 2nd says that the earth will be covered with edifices enshrining bones (of Buddha) and not with temples of gods. The idea about girls of 5, 6 and 7 being mothers occurs in Viṣṇupurāṇa VI. 1. 41-42, Brahma 229. 41-42, Nāradīya Pūrvārdha 41. 64 and elsewhere.