On the Dark Age
from Revolt Against the Modern World
by Julius
Evola, 1896
In reference to what I previously said
concerning
what ancient traditions called the
Dark Age
(Kali Yuga), I will now describe some
of
the features of this age found in an
ancient
Hindu text, the Visnu Purana. I will
put
in brackets what I consider to be the
contemporary
applications.
Outcastes and barbarians will be masters
of the banks of the Indus, Darvika,
the Chandrabhaga
and Kashmir. These will all be contemporary
rulers [of this age] reigning over
the earth:
kings [rulers] of violent temper.....
They
will seize upon the property of their
subjects;
they will be of limited power and will
for
the most part rapidly rise and fall;
their
lives will be short, their desires
insatiable,
and they will display but little piety.
The
people of various countries intermingling
with them will follow their example.....
The prevailing caste will be the Shudra.....
Vaisyas will abandon agriculture and
commerce
and gain a livelihood by servitude
or the
exercise of mechanical arts [proletarization
and industrialization]..... Kshyatrias
instead
of protecting will plunder their subjects:
and under the pretext of levying customs
will rob merchants of their property
[crisis
of capitalism and of private property;
socialization,
nationalization, and communism].....
Wealth
[inner] and piety [following one's
dharma]
will decrease day by day until the
whole
world will be wholly depraved. Then
property
alone will confer rank [the quantity
of dollars
- economic classes]; wealth [material]
will
be the only source of devotion; passion
will
be the sole bond of union between the
sexes;
falsehood will be the only means of
success
in litigation..... Earth will be venerated
but for its mineral treasures [unscrupulous
exploitation of the soil, demise of
the cult
of the earth]..... Brahmanical clothes
will
constitute a Brahman..... weakness
will be
the cause of dependence [cowardice,
death
of fides and honor in the modern political
forms]..... simple ablution [devoid
of the
power of the true rite] will be purification
[can there really be anything more
in the
alleged salvation procured in the Christian
sacraments?]..... In the Kali age men
corrupted
by unbelievers... will say: "Of
what
authority are the Vedas? What are gods
or
Brahmans?....." Observance of
caste,
order and institutes [traditional]
will not
prevail in the Kali age. Marriages
in this
age will not be conformable to the
ritual,
nor will the rules which connect the
preceptor
and his disciple be in force..... A
regenerated
man will be initiated in any way whatever
[democracy applied to the spiritual
plain]
and such acts of penance as may be
performed
will be unattended by any results [this
refers
to a "humanistic" and conformist
religion]..... all orders of life will
be
common alike to all persons..... He
who gives
away much money will be the master
of men
and family descent will no longer be
a title
of supremacy [the end of traditional
nobility,
advent of bourgeoisie, plutocracy].....
Men
will fix their desires upon riches,
even
though dishonestly acquired..... Men
of all
degrees will conceit themselves to
be equal
with Brahmans [the prevarication and
presumption
of the intellectuals and modern culture].....
The people will be almost always in
dread
of dearth and apprehensive of scarcity;
and
will hence ever be watching the appearances
of the sky [the meaning of the religious
and superstitious residues typical
of modern
masses]..... The women will pay no
attention
to the commands of their husbands or
parents.....
They will be selfish, abject and slatternly;
they will be scolds and liars; they
will
be indecent and immoral in their conduct
and will ever attach themselves to
dissolute
men..... Men having deviated into heresy,
iniquity will flourish, and the duration
of life will therefore decrease.
Nevertheless, in the Visnu Parana there
are
also references to elements of the
primordial
or "Manu's" race that have
been
preserved in this Dark Age in order
to be
the seed of new generations; what appears
again is the well-known idea of a new
and
final epiphany "from above":
When the practices taught by the Vedas
and
the institutes of law shall nearly
have ceased,
and the close of the Kali age shall
be nigh,
a portion of that devine being who
exists
of his own spiritual nature in the
character
of Brahma, and who is the beginning
and the
end, and who comprehends all things,
shall
descend upon the earth..... He will
then
reestablish righteousness upon earth;
and
the minds of those who live at the
end of
the Kali age shall be awakened, and
shall
be pellucid as crystal. The men who
are thus
changed by virtue of that peculiar
time shall
be the seeds of [new] human beings,
and shall
give birth to a race who shall follow
the
laws of the Krita age, or age of purity
[primordial
age].
In the same text and chapter it is
said that
the stock from which this divine principal
will be born lives in the village of
Shambhala;
Shambhala - as I previously suggested
- refers
to the metaphysics of the "center"
and the "pole," to the Hyperborean
mystery and the forces of primordial
tradition.
|
Evans Experientialism 
