Kalivarjya

The name for a collection of about fiftyfive acts “to be avoided in the Kali
[Age],” the last age in the cycle of cosmic
time after which it is believed the world
will be destroyed and recreated. This
was one of the strategies used by brahmin
scholars to forbid certain religious practices that were prescribed in the sacred
literature but were no longer acceptable
because of changing ideas. The
Kalivarjya prohibitions first appear in
texts around the twelfth century C.E.
Some of the practices considered
acceptable in earlier times but prohibited
during the Kali age include certain
animal sacrifices prescribed in the
Vedas (the earliest Hindu religious texts)
and suicide by a person suffering from a
terminal illness. For further information
see Pandurang Vaman Kane (trans.), A
History of Dharmasastra, 1968.