tasmin lubdhÄ durÄcÄrÄ
nirdayÄḥ Å›uá¹£ka-vairiṇaḥ
durbhagÄ bhÅ«ri-tará¹£ÄÅ› ca
śūdra-dÄsottarÄḥ prajÄḥ
tasmin - in that age; lubdhÄḥ - greedy; durÄcÄrÄḥ - ill-behaved; nirdayÄḥ - merciless; Å›uá¹£ka-vairiṇaḥ - prone to useless quarrel; durbhagÄḥ - unfortunate; bhÅ«ri-tará¹£Äḥ - obsessed by many kinds of hankering; ca - and; śūdra-dÄsa-uttarÄḥ - predominantly low-class laborers and barbarians; prajÄḥ - the people.
In the Kali age people tend to be greedy, ill-behaved and merciless, and they fight one another without good reason. Unfortunate and obsessed with material desires, the people of Kali-yuga are almost all śūdras and barbarians.
In this age, we can already observe that most people are laborers, clerks, fishermen, artisans or other kinds of workers within the śūdra category. Enlightened devotees of God and noble political leaders are extremely scarce, and even independent businessmen and farmers are a vanishing breed as huge business conglomerates increasingly convert them into subservient employees. Vast regions of the earth are already populated by barbarians and semibarbarous peoples, making the entire situation dangerous and bleak. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is empowered to rectify the current dismal state of affairs. It is the only hope for the ghastly age called Kali-yuga.
