And Brahmanas and
Kshatriyas and Vaisyas with their virtue contracted and divested of
asceticism and truth will all be reduced to an equality with the Sudras.
And the lowest orders of men will rise to the position of the
intermediate ones, and those in intermediate stations will, without
doubt, descend to the level of the lowest ones. Even such, O
Yudhishthira, will become the state of the world at the end of the
_Yuga_. Of robes those will be regarded the best that are made of flax,
and of grain the _Paspalum frumentacea_[5] will be regarded the best.
Towards this period men will regard their wives as their (only) friends.
And men will live on fish and milk, goats and sheep, for cows will be
extinct. And towards that period, even they that are always observant of
vows, will become covetous. And opposed to one another, men will, at
such a time, seek one another's lives; and divested of _Yuga_, people
will become atheists and thieves. And they will even dig the banks of
streams with their spades and sow grains thereon. And even those places
will prove barren for them at such a time. And those men who are devoted
to ceremonial rites in honour of the deceased and of the gods, will be
avaricious and will also appropriate and enjoy what belongs to others.
The father will enjoy what belongs to the son; and the son, what belongs
to the father. And those things will also be enjoyed by men in such
times, the enjoyment of which hath been forbidden in the scriptures.
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