Shloka 14
कलिस्वरूप-वर्णनम् एवं कालमान-प्रस्तावना
सर्वम् एव कलौ शास्त्रं यस्य यद् वचनं द्विज देवताश् च कलौ सर्वाः सर्वः सर्वस्य चाश्रमः
sarvam eva kalau śāstraṃ yasya yad vacanaṃ dvija devatāś ca kalau sarvāḥ sarvaḥ sarvasya cāśramaḥ
O twice-born, in the age of Kali whatever anyone utters is taken as scripture itself; and in Kali all the gods are treated as though they were the same. Everyone becomes everything—each person claims for himself every āśrama and every order of life.
Sage Parāśara (teaching Maitreya)
Speaker: Parasara
Topic: Kali-yuga confusion: relativizing śāstra, leveling devas, and collapse of varṇāśrama boundaries
Teaching: Ethical
Quality: revealing
Concept: Kali-yuga fosters epistemic and social disorder: personal opinion masquerades as śāstra, distinctions among devas blur, and varṇāśrama roles are self-assigned without discipline.
Vedantic Theme: Dharma
Application: Anchor practice in tested śāstra and living sampradāya guidance; cultivate humility and role-appropriate duties rather than self-authorized spirituality.
Vishishtadvaita: Affirms the necessity of śāstra-pramāṇa and ordered dharma as the Lord’s governance of the real world, not mere convention.
FAQs
This verse marks Kali-yuga as an age where personal assertion replaces śāstric authority, leading to instability in dharma and loss of reliable spiritual standards.
Parāśara describes a confusion of boundaries—people treat any statement as authoritative and assume every āśrama indiscriminately—showing the erosion of disciplined life and inherited duties.
By portraying the failure of human-made authority in Kali, the text implicitly points back to Vishnu as the stable supreme ground of dharma—beyond shifting opinions and social disorder.