"Brother will cheat brother. Even learned persons will lose love of truth and be addicted to telling lies; the old will act like boys, boys like old people. Cowards will brag of their bravery and brave men will act like cowards. All will eat the same kinds of food and be tilled with selfishness and delusion. No one will trust another.
"Brāhmans, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas will cease to restrain and rule the Sudras or even each other. All castes will be levelled and become one—unclean and barbarous. Fathers will not pardon sons, nor sons pardon their fathers. Wives will cease from attending upon their husbands; men and women will all be self-willed and envious of each other. People will not perform any good works or ceremonies to satisfy the gods. They will not listen to each other; there will be no gooroo (teacher) or chelā (pupil), all will be filled with the darkness of ignorance. At Kali-end. their longevity will be sixteen years; most will die immediately after that age is reached. Women will give birth to children at the age of seven or eight, and, in some cases, even at five or six; men will beget children at the age of ten or twelve; in some cases, even at the age of seven or eight. No husband will be satisfied with his wife, no wife satisfied with her husband. They will have very little wealth, and even those who will have no wealth whatever will wear the false marks of wealth. Envy will be predominant in every mind, hunger ever burning in every stomach. Cross-road and streets will be thronged by wantons and libertines. Women, forsaking shame, will bear spite and grudge for their husbands. Men will be all of unclean habits, manners and customs, cat anything and everything and will be terrible in every way and action. They will cheat all in buying and selling of goods, out of sheer greed.
"None will care to acquire spiritual wisdom, yet all will be busied in performing spiritual ceremonies for form's sake and be naturally addicted to crooked acts. They will show the faults of each other. People will live in constant fear of losing their lives as victims of their own greed and envy. The Sudras will kill Brāhmans and rob them of their property, and the Brāhmans being thus oppressed will cry out in agony and out of fear will roam unprotected on the surface of the earth. Some of them will take refuge in lonely spots on river banks, in mountains and in dangerous places to save their lives; others being oppressed by the grinding taxes of unjust kings, will lose all patience, and taking to the services of Sudras, will perform forbidden acts.
"The generality of people will become fierce and of murderous propensities. The Sudras will become spiritual preceptors and Brāhmans will listen to them, believing their wrong precepts to be demonstrated facts. The low will be high and the high low: all conditions will be reversed. All, all people will forsake God and worship Mammon. The Sudras will cease from serving Brāhmans. The Earth will no longer be adorned by the temples of God. All mankind will be impious and develop frightful characters. Meat will be their food, liquor their drink. The one object of life will be to increase flesh and blood. The rain-clouds towards the close of Kali will pour down rains out of season so that, overwhelmed by incessant and untimely rain, people will subsist on fruit and roots. Pupils will not care for the lessons of their teachers, temporal or other, and will act against their wishes. The poverty-stricken Gooroos (spiritual teachers) will curse their disciples. There will not be the least trace of respect left in the world. The relations of friends and kiths and kins will depend upon obligations of money.
"At the close of the cycle flowers will grow upon flowers, fruits upon fruits, and, owing to the rains not falling in season, there will grow but scanty crops, so that famine-stricken populations of the earth will cry out in hunger and roam upon her surface. Fragrant things will lose their odor, sweet juices will lose their sweetness, seeds will not germinate properly.
"Women will transfer their love from husbands to servants. All women, including wives of heroes, will prefer somebody else to their husbands for lovers. Pious men will be in mean stations, short-lived and poor; vicious men will occupy high positions, have long life and prosperity. There will be constant breaking out of fires all over the land. Tired and hungry wayfarers will ask for food and refuge from householders in vain, and out of despair rest and sleep upon the road. Crows and other birds, snakes and beasts will make unearthly noises."
When Nature and human society will be thus revolutionized, reaction will naturally set ill. When the fruit of Divine Cycle will thus reach its extreme stage of rottenness, out of its seed will spring forth a shoot which will grow into a fresh tree. That tree, in turn, will bear fresh fruit—a fresh Divine Cycle. In this state of the darkest gloom, faint streaks of russet light will be visible which will grow bright anon and give birth to the dawn of the Golden Age again.
Reaction is the law of Nature, reaction is the result of every phase of action. When vice has its full run on the face of the globe, when it has reached its lowest depth and wildest reign, it spends its force, becomes weakened, allowing virtue to lift its head once more and build its palace of light upon its ruins. Vice is born of Tama, and virtue of Sattwa and the active force of both is Rāja. Time is the self-manifesting kaleidoscopic revolution of color-pictures on the transparent canvas of ether. After the deepest shades of dark colors are exhausted, there is a reaction of lighter colors. When Tama has exhausted its force, Sattwa asserts itself by natural law.
This healthy reaction growing stronger will gradually evolve some order out of the chaos of the closing Kali. A portion of the people will get disgusted with the reign of utmost licence and inharmony, and, endowed with strong mental force to resist the influence of the age, will pierce the veil of darkness enveloping everything and see the light that dwells within. These will stimulate this reaction, and spread the discovered light among others groping in the darkness for that light.
The four castes will be gradually established once more in some fashion.