Sanskrit
प्रह्लादश्चास्मि दैत्यानां कालः कलयतामहम् । मृगाणां च मृगेन्द्रोऽहं वैनतेयश्च पक्षिणाम् ॥ ३० ॥
prahlādaś cāsmi daityānāṃ kālaḥ kalayatām aham mṛgāṇāṃ ca mṛgendro'haṃ vainateyaś ca pakṣiṇām
Translation
And I am Prahlâda of Daityas; of calculators Time am I; and of wild beasts I the imperial beast; and Vainateya of birds.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Prahlada among the Daityas is a pointed choice — a demon’s son who became Vishnu’s devotee against his own father’s will, named here as Krishna’s chosen representative among the demon class. It’s a claim that devotion transcends birth, not just an entry in a roster of raw power like the lion and Garuda that follow in the same verse. Choosing Prahlāda — a demon by birth, devotee by choice — as the foremost Daitya makes the same point as BG 9.32: devotion overrides origin. Kālaḥ kalayatām, “Time among reckoners,” is the quiet foreshadow of chapter 11.
Study deeper
Word by word
- prahlādaś cāsmi daityānāṃप्रह्लादश् चास्मि दैत्यानां
- among the Daityas I am Prahlāda (prahlādaḥ + ca + asmi + daityānām)
- kālaḥ kalayatām ahamकालः कलयतां अहं
- among reckoners I am Time (kālaḥ + kalayatām + aham)
- mṛgāṇāṃ ca mṛgendro'haṃमृगाणां च मृगेन्द्रोऽहं
- and among beasts I am the lion (mṛgāṇām + ca + mṛga-indraḥ + aham)
- vainateyaś ca pakṣiṇāmवैनतेयश् च पक्षिणां
- and among birds, Garuḍa (vainateyaḥ + ca + pakṣiṇām)
Commentary
Site Commentary
“Kālaḥ kalayatām” plays on the shared root between kāla, time, and kalayatām, those who calculate or reckon — the very thing enumerators use to measure and order the world is named as itself the best reckoner. The wordplay makes time both the instrument of calculation and the calculating agent, collapsing the measurer into the measured.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- A tool you built to measure your own progress — a calendar, a tracker, a habit log — can quietly start driving your choices instead of just recording them. Notice when the measuring instrument has become the one making the decisions, and decide if that's what you actually want.
Professional
- A metric built to track a team's progress can start dictating decisions on its own once people optimize for the number rather than the outcome it was meant to represent — watch for that collapse and re-anchor the metric to what it was supposed to serve.
Family & Social
- A routine or checklist adopted to serve family life — a schedule, a chore chart — can quietly start running the household instead of supporting it. Check occasionally whether the tool still serves you or has started to substitute for judgment.
Ask yourself
A few ways to take this verse past reading. Ticks and the note stay in this browser.