The future of the Kali age, a king who meets death without fear, and a sage who sees the cosmos inside a child.
What happens in this skandha
Shuka foretells the kings and the decline of the Kali age, and its one great remedy: the Name. Parikshit, his fear gone, meets Takshaka. Suta tells of Markandeya, who saw the waters of dissolution and an infant on a banyan leaf, and the book closes by summarising the whole Bhagavatam and praising the Name that ends all suffering.
Episodes in this skandha
The Kali age foretold — Skandha 12, adhyayas 1-3 — Shuka describes an age when wealth decides virtue and a thread decides caste — and names the one great gift it holds.
Parikshit meets Takshaka — Skandha 12, adhyayas 5-6 — On the seventh day Shuka gives his last instruction, the king's fear is gone, and Takshaka arrives to find a man already free.
Markandeya sees the dissolution — Skandha 12, adhyayas 8-10 — A sage asks to see the Lord's maya, is swept into a flood that drowns the worlds, and finds a child asleep on a banyan leaf.
Continue through the Bhagavatam
Ekadasha Skandha — Skandha 11 — Krishna's last teaching, to Uddhava, before he leaves the world: twenty-four teachers, the swan, and the mendicant's song.
