I am Time, the destroyer of the worlds, grown great, come to increase. For what purpose I have grown great, hear: I am at work, in this time, to gather in, to draw together, the worlds. Even without you, even apart from you, all these, Bhīṣma, Droṇa, Karṇa and the rest, of whom you have doubt, who stand arrayed in the hostile ranks, rank against rank, the warriors, the fighters, will cease to be. Since it is so.

The Blessed Lord spoke. 'Kala' means he who reckons, who counts; reckoning the close of the lifespan of all the kingly worlds, Duryodhana foremost, I, the destroyer of them, grown great in a terrible form, am set out here, with My face toward it, to gather in the kingly worlds, to withdraw them. So by My resolve alone, even without you, even without your exertion, these kingly ones, Duryodhana foremost, all the warriors who stand on the side opposed to you, will not be; they will perish.

The word 'kala' (time) denotes all the attributes of the Lord, the binding of the world, the severing, the knowing and the rest; for the roots 'kal' are read in the senses of binding, severing, knowing, and as 'kala, the wish-cow'. And that word is well known of the Lord. The Moksha-dharma says, 'fast bound by the noose of time, O Indra, you boast; this is that dark Person who takes away the creatures of the world; the dreadful one stands having bound me, as one binds a beast with a rope'; and 'Bali, bound by Vishnu, says'; and the Bhagavata, 'holding the mind on Vishnu, the sovereign Lord, whose body is time' (Bhagavata 11.15.15). 'Grown great' (pravrddha) means wholly full, or beginningless, for the scripture says, 'the right and the true, from the kindled one' (Rigveda 8.8.49.1; Mahanarayana 6.1), and 'this great being' (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.12); and 'let Vishnu come forth, mightier than the mighty, for fierce indeed is the name of this ancient one' (Rigveda 5.6.25.3); it does not mean a growing. For the Bhagavata says, 'He was not born, He will not die, He does not increase'; and the Moksha-dharma, 'He whose form is divine, it neither wanes nor grows'. And 'not by action' (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.23) means He is not increased even by action, how much less of Himself. He has engaged here, in a special way, to gather in the worlds. The word 'too' includes even the brothers and the rest. Their being opposed is by their being so toward one another. Not all of them will survive; the plural is apt by the distinction of the armies and the rest.