The king consoled Dharma and Mother Earth and then prepared to kill Kali. Seeing no other option, Kali took off his kingly dress, fell at the feet of Maharaj Pariksit, and began to beg for his life. Considering that it is not proper to kill someone who surrenders, Pariksit said to Kali, “Have no fear for your life, but you cannot stay anywhere in my kingdom. Greed, falsity, theft, dacoity, villainy, neglect of social duty, misfortune, deceit, quarrel, pride, and all other forms of adharma reside in your presence. Therefore, you cannot reside where dharma and truth reside or where devotees are present.” Kali then said to Pariksit, “O Maharaj! I do not see any place apart from your kingdom anywhere. Please mercifully designate some place for me to stay.”

abhyarthitas tada tasmai sthanani kalaye dadau
dyutam panam striyah suna yatradharmas chatur-vidhah
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 1.17.38)

Pariksit Maharaj then gave Kali, the friend of adharma, the four places of the greatest adharma: (1) gaming, (2) drinking, (3) women, and (4) slaughter.

‘Gaming’ refers to playing within inanimate objects. In general cards, chess, dice, horse racing, water play, gambling, the lottery, 10–25 (a game like dice played with cowries), capture the tiger (a board game of strategy), and so on should be counted as gaming. In different lands, gaming is seen in different forms, and with the rise of Kali, many new forms of gaming are being created. Covering over dharma, many types of play with inanimate objects have started. Wise devotees of the Lord can understand these to be places of Kali and warn others about them.

‘Drinking’ refers to alcohol. Drinking is also seen in many forms. Paan, betel net, snuff, tobacco, ganja, opium, wine, and so on should also counted as drinking. By chewing paan, the desire to enjoy increases, and by chewing betel nut, the mind becomes restless. By smoking tobacco, mental aberration, stupor, and aversion to the Lord develop. By smoking ganja, the intelligence is destroyed. Opium, bhang (hemp leaves and flower heads), hemlock, tobacco, datura, date liquor, arrack (palm or rice liquor), and ganja—these eight so-called ‘siddhi’ substances make men animal-like. Sridhar Swamipad has given the word pana (‘drinking’) in his commentary as madyadi. Therefore, be it produced from mahua, sugar, grapes, breadfruits, dates, jackfruit, cowplant, honey, wood apple, liqourice, coconut, or rice—these twelve types of wine should also be counted as forms of drinking. Those who want to adhere to dharma should know that Kali resides in all these substances and stay away from them.

Because paan can be offered to the Lord and the exalted devotee Pundarik Vidyanidhi consumed it, some so-called devotees think that they can consume paan as prasadam. The answer to this is as follows:

tejiyasam na dosaya vahneh sarva-bhujo yatha
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 10.33.29)

“A powerful person is not implicated in sin under any circumstances just as fire can consume any substance.” The Lord is the one and only enjoyer. The behaviour of Pundarik Vidyanidhi and other realised souls (paramahamsas) should never be imitated by conditioned souls. Wise devotees consider themselves unfit to accept the remnants of the Lord’s paan and honour it from a distance. Pure devotees, considering themselves servants of the servants of the embodiment of separation Sri Gaurasundar, take to heart the advice of Srila Rupapad and give up all designations and desires for enjoyment:

yavata syat svanirvahah svikuryat tavad artha-vit
adhikye nyūnatayan cha chyavate paramarthatah
(Sri Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu: 1.2.106)

[“The sensible accept as much as is necessary for their maintenance. By accepting more or less, one fails to attain the highest goal.”]

Association with women is of two types: illicit association with women and attachment to one’s wife. Both are places of Kali. Dharma is absent and Kali is always present in the deviant sects in which illicit association with women goes on. Making an example of Junior Haridas, Sriman Mahaprabhu instructed the world:

prabhu kahe, “vairagi kare prakrti sambhasana
dekhite na paro ami tahara vadana
durvara indriya kare visaya-grahana
daru-prakrti hare muner api mana
matra svasra duhitra va na viviktasano bhavet
balavan indriya-gramo vidvamsam api karsati
ksudra-jiva saba markata-vairagya kariya
indriya charana bule ‘prakrti’ sambhasiya”
(Sri Chaitanya charitamrta: Antya-lila, 2.117–118, 120; Srimad Bhagavatam: 9.19.17)

[Prabhu said, “I cannot look at the face of a renunciant who converses with women. Irrepressibly, the senses grasp the sense objects; even a wooden form of a woman captivates the mind of a sage. ‘One should not sit in private with one’s mother, sister, or daughter; the powerful senses can captivate the mind of even a learned man.’ Shameful souls engage in ‘monkey-renunciation’, stimulate the senses, wander about, and converse with women.”]

Association with women is a place of Kali, and even the association of those who associate with women is to be given up in all respects.

tesv asantesu mudhesu khanditatmasv asadhusu
sangam na kuryach chhochyesu yosit-krida-mrgesu cha
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 3.31.34)

[“One should never associate with those who are restless, foolish, self-destructive, wicked, deplorable, and the pet animals of women.”]

Attachment to one’s lawful wife is also a shackle of adharma.

ko grhesu puman saktam atmanam ajitendriyah
sneha-pasair drdhair baddham utsaheta vimochitum
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 7.6.9)

[“Attached to household life and bound tightly by the ropes of affection, what person with uncontrolled senses is able to free themself?”]

yato na kaschit kva cha kutrachid va
dinah svam atmanam alam samarthah
vimochitum kama-drsam vihara-
krida-mrgo yan-nigado visargah
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 7.6.17)

[“No one anywhere at any time is at all able to free themself on their own. Fallen souls become pet animals for the pleasure of seductive women and entangled by their offspring.”]

‘Slaughter’ means killing living beings. Only persons dedicated to the service of the Lord are free from killing other living beings. Why? All their actions are engaged in the Lord’s service. Souls who are averse to the Lord’s service are killing living beings at every moment. By their every inhalation and exhalation, every footstep, and every daily activity, countless living beings are being killed. Within the prescriptions for atonement on the path of worldly action (karma), there are prescriptions to perform sacrifices for the sages, gods, living beings, humans, and ancestors to ward off the sin produced by the five instruments of slaughter*, but the seeds of sin are not eradicated by this. Counteraction of karma with karma is never final; know it to be like the bathing of an elephant.

There are many types of ‘killing living beings’, but in particular killing another for the nourishment of one’s own body should be known as ‘killing living beings’. The souls whom one kills in this birth obtain another body in their next birth and kill the soul that killed them.

ye tv anevam-vido ’santah stabdhah sad-abhimaninah
pasun druhyanti visrabdhah pretya khadanti te cha tan
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 11.5.14)

[“Stubborn, arrogant, and impious persons who do not understand dharma confidently kill animals, but those animals eat them in their next life.”]

mam sa bhaksayitamutra yasya mamsam ihadmy aham
etan mamsasya mamsatvam pravadanti manisinah
(Sri Manu-smrti: 5.55)

[“Me he will eat in the next life whose meat I eat in this life. The wise say this is the reason meat is known as mamsa (lit. ‘me’-‘he’).”]

Killing animals does not happen only by killing them with one’s own hands. There are many types of animal killing:

anumanta visasita nihanta kraya-vikrayi
samskarta chopaharta cha khadakas cheti ghatakah
(Sri Manu-smrti: 5.51)

In the killing of an animal, the permitter, the carver, the killer, the buyer, the seller, the preparer, the server, and the eater—all such persons are included in the class of the slaughterer. The prescriptions in the scriptures of worldly action to kill animals in sacrifices and other forms of worship should be known to be only for the purpose of curtailing and eliminating this natural attachment within the conditioned souls.

loke vyavayamisa-madya-seva
nitya hi jantor na hi tatra chodana
vyavasthitis tesu vivaha-yajna-
sura-grahair asu nivrttir ista
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 11.5.11)

[“Consorting with women, eating meat, and drinking wine are habitual for living beings in this world. These activities are not mandated by scriptures, and the purpose of the allowances for these activities in the scriptures through marriage, sacrifice, and ceremony is to suppress them.”]

Therefore, those who do not understand the hidden intention of the scripture and kill or give indulgence to the killing of animals for the nourishment of the body fall into the hands of Kali. Persons who follow the eternal dharma should reject the association of such persons as bad association. Reluctance to spread discussion of the Lord should also be considered animal killing or slaughter.

nivrtta-tarsair upagiyamanad
bhavausadhach chhrotra-mano-’bhiramat
ka uttamasloka-gunanuvadat
puman virajyeta vina pasughnat
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 10.1.4)

[“Glorification of the Lord is constantly sung by those who have overcome material desire, is the cure for material existence, and is the delight of the ears and heart. Who could give it up other than those who slaughter animals?”]

Where there is abstention from glorification of discussion of the Lord, there Kali enters, and where the Lord’s devotees glorify the Lord, there the Lord Himself resides.

punas cha yachamanaya jata-rupam adat prabhuh
tato ’nrtam madam kamam rajo vairan cha panchamam
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 1.17.39)

Pariksit Maharaj befittingly allocated four places of adharma to Kali. In gaming falsity is present, in drinking the loss of austerity as a result of pride, in association with women the loss of cleanliness, and in slaughter cruelty, the loss of compassion, and all other forms of adharma.

Although Kali obtained the four places of these four types of adharma from Maharaj Pariksit, he could not be satisfied because the four aforementioned places of these four types of adharma each exist separately from one another. Kali then prayed for one such place in which the four aforementioned types of adharma can all be found in one place simultaneously. Maharaj Pariksit, in response to Kali’s repeated prayer, gave him gold. The reason for this is that in gold, these four types of adharma—falsity, pride, lust produced by the association of women, and violence—exist simultaneously, and furthermore a fifth type of vice, enmity, is also present within it. Where conditioned souls use wealth with the mentality of being an enjoyer, there all vices arise. But where pure devotees whose every action is in Krsna’s interest engage wealth in the service of the Lord, there wealth is used appropriately.

bhogira kanaka bhogera janaka
kanakera dvare sevaha madhava
(Vaisnava ke: 3)

[“The wealth of an enjoyer is their means to enjoyment. Therefore, you should serve the Lord with His wealth.”]

Thus, those who do not serve the Lord and use wealth for their own service or use wealth for themselves in the name of the Lord’s service—crack open and eat nuts using a Salagram-sila—fall into the hands of Kali. Even by acting in this way in the name of dharma, falsity in the form of self-deception and the desire to deceive disciples and other persons develops, as does pride about one’s birth, wealth, learning, and beauty, lust in the form of the desire to associate with women, and violence or reluctance to preach the principles of pure devotion unobstructed and unimpaired by worldly wealth and other distractions. With all this, envy and enmity of pure devotees also develop.

Those who desire genuine, eternal good fortune—who aspire for genuine service to the Name, the Lord, and the devotees—should always stay away from all these places of Kali and engage in the Lord’s service. By practising and preaching about the Lord, they will do eternal good to themselves and others.

Reference

The five instruments of slaughter (pancha-suna):

pancha-suna grhasthasya chulli pesany upaskarah
kandani cha udakumbhas cha badhyate yastu vahayan
(Sri Manu-smrti: 3.68)

“The hearth, the grinding stone, the broom, the mortar, and the waterpot—the householder has five instruments of slaughter by using which they are entangled [in sins].”