The word kāla (time) denotes the supreme Lord’s function of cutting the bonds of the world that arise from ignorance, etc. Some read the passage as: ‘time in binding, time in cutting, time in knowledge, time as the wish-fulfilling cow.’ The word is well-known as applied to the Lord. The fixed noose of time binds even Śakra; this Person, dark-hued, carries away the peoples of the world. ‘Having bound, he stands raging, as a net holds an animal’—so in the teaching on liberation. In the Purāṇa it is said that Viṣṇu bound Bali and, keeping his mind on Viṣṇu the Lord, (preserved him) in the threefold sovereignty. ‘He is full-grown, perfect, without beginning. He established ṛta and satya’—thus the Śruti. ‘This is the great element’ is also declared. The ṛṣi praises Viṣṇu’s ascetic power — not growth. ‘He was not born, he will not die, he is not subject to dissolution’—so the Purāṇa and the doctrine of moksha teach that what is divine does not diminish but does not increase either. ‘Not by works’ — yet is it not also by works? Rather, by Himself. He is specially active here to gather the worlds. ‘Bhrātṛādiṅś ca ṛte’—this expression indicates mutual proximity. Will not all exist? The plural suits distinctions such as Akṣauhīṇya, etc.