Hindu Prophecies
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 saviour 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 vile, 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.
Dharma becomes very weak in the Kali Age. 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 vigour and lustre.
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 coloured 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. I
Propriety 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.
Any hard-to-reach water will be deemed a pilgrimage site.
The pretence 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.