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June 2023

Kaalaaya Tasmai Namah

By C. N. Vaze, Chartered Accountant
Reading Time 3 mins
This expression is used as a proverb in many Indian languages since it is derived from a Sanskrit Shloka.
This is from Bhartruhari’s Vairagya Shataka. Bhartruhari, a great Sanskrit poet, wrote 100 verses (shlokas) each on 3 topics – Neeti (Ethics), Shringar (Romance) and Vairagya (Detachment/renunciation). Each collection of 100 shlokas is known as shatak (century). 41st shloka in Vairagya shatak is the present one. It refers to the prosperous city of Ujjain (Ujjayini). Meaning of the shloka – Gone is that prosperous city (kingdom), that great king (Vikramaditya), those subordinate states, that community of scholars, those beautiful women (artists), those arrogant princes, those admirers of the King, those stories of valour. All these things have now remained in memories, due to the TIME (Kaal). I bow to this TIME (who pushes everything into oblivion or history). That is life. We have a well-known kawwali: -