Skanda Purana — Kashi Khanda, Shloka 91
हा कालबालकवती किमुतेन राज्ञी त्वत्कालतां न हृतवान्नसुताननेंदुः । बालेति कोमलमृणाल लतांगलीलं दंभोलिनिष्ठुरकठोरकुठारदंष्ट्रः
hā kālabālakavatī kimutena rājñī tvatkālatāṃ na hṛtavānnasutānaneṃduḥ | bāleti komalamṛṇāla latāṃgalīlaṃ daṃbholiniṣṭhurakaṭhorakuṭhāradaṃṣṭraḥ
Alas—made childless by Time! And what of this queen—has not the moon of her son’s face stolen away her very life? “A child!”—yet that tender play of a body like soft lotus-stalk and creeping vine has been struck by Time, whose fangs are like a cruel thunderbolt, a hard axe, a ruthless blade.
Narrator/lamentspeaker within the story (describing the queen’s grief)
Tirtha: Kāśī (Avimukta)
Type: kshetra
Scene: A queen clutches her chest, staring at the imagined ‘moon-face’ of her son; Kāla is personified with thunderbolt/axe/blade-like fangs striking the tender lotus-stalk body of the child.
FAQs
It stresses impermanence: Time spares none, urging the seeker toward the deathless refuge praised throughout the Kāśī Khaṇḍa.
Not named in the verse; the larger Kāśī Khaṇḍa context points to Kāśī as the sacred place where death is transformed into liberation.
None explicitly.
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