Hindu: The End of the Kali
Age
(From the Hindu Puranas)
[Apocalypse for the Hindu is the natural ending of the
world in the fourth age, the Kali Age. It is one of a series
of apocalypses, each of which marks the end of one cycle and
the beginning of another creation. The central figure in the
story is Vishnu, the preserver God, into whose self the world
is absorbed before being born again. Vishnu has already saved
humanity on a number of occasions, symbolically appearing as
a savior in many different forms. It is said that He will appear
again soon, as Kalki, a white horse, destined to destroy the
present world and to take humanity to a different, higher plane.]
"All kings occupying the earth in the Kali Age will
be wanting in tranquillity, strong in anger, taking pleasure
at all times in lying and dishonesty, inflicting death on women,
children, and cows, prone to take the paltry possessions of others,
with character that is mostly tamas, rising to power and soon
falling. They will be short-lived, ambitious, of little virtue,
and greedy. People will follow the customs of others and be adulterated
with them; peculiar, undisciplined barbarians will be vigorously
supported by rulers. Because they go on living with perversion,
they will be ruined.
"And Dharma becomes very weak in the Kali age, and
people commit sin in mind, speech, and actions... Quarrels, plague,
fatal diseases, famines, drought, and calamities appear. Testimonies
and proofs have no certainty. There is no criterion left when
the Kali age settles down. People become poorer in vigor and
luster. They are wicked, full of anger, sinful, false, and avaricious.
Bad ambitions, bad education, bad dealings, and bad earnings
excite fear. The whole batch becomes greedy and untruthful. Many
sudras will become kings, and many heretics will be seen.
"There will arise various sects; sannyasins wearing
clothes colored red. Many profess to have supreme knowledge because,
thereby, they will easily earn their livelihood. In the Kali
age, there will be many false religionists. India will become
desolate by repeated calamities, short lives, and various diseases.
Everyone will be miserable owing to the dominance of vice and
Tamoguna; people will freely commit abortion.
"Earth will be valued only for her mineral treasures.
Money alone will confer nobility. Power will be the sole definition
of virtue. Pleasure will be the only reason for marriage. Lust
will be the only reason for womanhood. Falsehood will win out
in disputes. Being dry of water will be the only definition of
land. Praise worthiness will be measured by accumulated wealth.
Impropriety will be considered good conduct, and only feebleness
will be the reason for unemployment. Boldness and arrogance will
be equivalent to scholarship. Only those without wealth will
show honesty. Just a bath will amount to purification, and charity
will be the only virtue. Abduction will be marriage. Simply to
be well dressed will signify propriety. And any hard-to-reach
water will be deemed a pilgrimage site. The pretense of greatness
will be the proof of it, and powerful men with many severe faults
will rule over all the classes on earth. Oppressed by their excessively
greedy rulers, people will hide in valleys between mountains,
where they will gather honey, vegetables, roots, fruits, birds,
flowers and so forth. Suffering from cold, wind, heat and rain,
they will put on clothes made of tree bark and leaves. And no
one will live as long as twenty-three years. Thus in the Kali
Age humankind will be utterly destroyed."
The Prophecy Concerning Maitreya,
The Future Buddha
Translation by Edward Conze, in his Buddhist Scriptures
(Penguin Books, 1959)
"At present Maitreya is believed to reside in the
Tutshita, heaven, awaiting his last rebirth when the time is
ripe. Sariputra, the great general of the doctrine, with compassion
for the world asked the Lord, 'Some time ago you have spoken
to us of the future Buddha, who will lead the world at a future
period, and who will bear the name of Maitreya. I would now wish
to hear more about his powers and miraculous gifts.'
"The Lord replied, 'Maitreya, the best of men, will
then leave the Tushita heavens, and go for his last rebirth.
As soon as he is born he will walk seven steps forward, and where
he puts down his feet a jewel or a lotus will spring up. He will
raise his eyes to the ten directions, and will speak these words,
'This is my last birth. There will be no rebirth after this one.
Never will I come back here, but, all pure, I shall win Nirvana!'
"And when his father sees that his son has the thirty-two
marks of a superman, and considers their implications in the
light of the holy mantras, he will be filled with joy, for he
will know that, as the mantras show, two ways are open to his
son: he will either be a universal monarch, or a supreme Buddha.
But as Maitreya grows up, the Dharma will increasingly take possession
of him, and he will reflect that all that lives is bound to suffer.
He will have a heavenly voice which reaches far; his skin will
have a golden hue; a great splendor will radiate from his body;
his chest will be broad, limbs well developed, and his eyes will
be like lotus petals. His body is eighty cubits high, and twenty
cubits broad. He will have a retinue of 84,000 persons, whom
he will instruct in the mantras. With this retinue he will one
day go forth into the homeless life. A Dragon tree will then
be the tree under which he will win enlightenment; its branches
rise up to fifty leagues, and its foliage spreads far and wide
over six Kos. Underneath it Maitreya, the best of men, will attain
enlightenment; there can be no doubt on that. And he will win
his enlightenment the very same day that he has gone forth into
the homeless life.
"And then, a supreme sage, he will... explain the
four Truths, because he has seen that generation, in faith, ready
for them, and those who have listened to his Dharma will thereupon
make progress. They will be assembled in a park full of beautiful
flowers, and his assembly will extend over a hundred leagues.
Under Maitreya's guidance, hundreds of thousands of living beings
shall enter upon a religious life.
"For 60,000 years Maitreya, the best of men, will
preach the true Dharma, which is compassionate toward all living
beings. And when he has disciplined in his true Dharma hundreds
and hundreds of millions of living beings, then that leader will
at last enter Nirvana. And after the great sage has entered Nirvana,
his true Dharma still endures for another ten thousand years."
Jesus of Nazareth
New Testament -- Matthew 24: 4-21
"And Jesus answered and said to them: See to it that
no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying, "I
am the Christ," and will mislead many. And you will be hearing
of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened,
for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.
"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines
and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning
of birth pangs.
"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will
kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of
my name. And at that time many will fall away and will deliver
up one another and hate one another. And many false prophets
will arise and will mislead many.
"And because lawlessness is increased, most people's
love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he shall
be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in
the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the
end shall come.
"Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION
which was spoken for through Daniel the prophet, standing in
the holy place let the reader understand, then let those who
are in Judea flee to the mountains; let him who is on the housetop
not go down to get the things out that are in his house; and
let him who is in the field not turn back to get his cloak. But
woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babes
in those days!
"But pray that your flight may not be in the winter,
or on a Sabbath; for then there will be a great tribulation,
such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until
now, nor ever shall."
---- and Matthew 24: 37-39
[Jesus continued] "For the coming of the Son of Man
will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days which
were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered
the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and
took them all away; so shall the coming of the Son of Man be."
Muhammad (Qur'an)
"When the Terror descends (and none denies its descending)
abasing, exalting, when the earth shall be rocked and the mountains
crumbled and become a dust scattered and you shall be three bands...
"The ancients, and the later folk shall be gathered
to the appointed time of a known day. Then you erring ones, you
that cried lies, you shall eat of a tree called Zakkoum, and
you shall fill therewith your bellies and drink on top of that
boiling water, lapping it down like thirsty camels. This shall
be their hospitality on the Day of Doom. (LVI, 1-55.)
"So, when the Trumpet is blown with a single blast
and the earth and the mountains are lifted up and crushed with
a single blow, then, on that day, the Terror shall come to pass,
and heaven shall be split, for upon that day it shall be very
frail, and the angels shall stand upon its borders, and upon
that day eight shall carry above them the Throne of thy Lord.
"On that day you shall be exposed, not one secret
of yours concealed. Then as for him who is given his book in
his right hand, he shall say, 'Here, take and read my book! Certainly
I thought that I should encounter thy reckoning.' So he shall
be in a pleasing life in a lofty Garden, its clusters nigh to
gather.
'Eat and drink with wholesome appetite for that you did
long ago, in the days gone by.'
"But as for him who is given his book in his left
hand, he shall say, 'Would that I had not been given my book
and not known my reckoning! Would it had been the end! My wealth
has not availed me, my authority is gone from me.' Take him,
and fetter him, and then roast him in Hell, then in a chain of
seventy cubits' length insert him! Behold, he never believed
in God the All-mighty, and he never urged the feeding of the
needy; therefore he today has not here one loyal friend, neither
any food saving foul pus, that none excepting the sinners eat."
(LXIX, 41-39)
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