• kāla-traya — the three phases of time
  Compound: kāla + traya (triplet). Past, present, future. Bhagavān's janma-karma is co-extensive with all of time, because (verse 19) He is Time. Vaiṣṇava metaphysics: the avatāra's life happens in time, but His person stands outside it.
• upapannāni — occurring
  Past participle of upa-√pad — to fall to, occur. Bhagavān's deeds 'fall to' all three times — they have happened, are happening, will happen. The avatāras are not single-event; they are cyclic and continual.
• parama-ṛṣayaḥ — the greatest sages
  Compound: parama (greatest) + ṛṣayaḥ (sages). Vyāsa, Nārada, Vasiṣṭha, Śuka. Even these cannot reach the end. Gauḍīyas read this as the structural reason for the Bhāgavata being twelve cantos rather than complete — paramparā never finishes.
• anukramantaḥ — enumerating
  Present participle of anu-√kram — to step after, enumerate one-by-one. The same root as Anu-kramaṇī (the indices that summarize Vedic texts). Even the great enumerators are inadequate to Bhagavān.
• antam — the end
  From anta. There is no antam. The bhakti-attitude embraces this; the speculator wearies of it. Gauḍīyas read endlessness not as frustration but as the structural ground of perpetual rasa.

The greatest sages enumerate Bhagavān's birth and deeds across past, present and future — and still do not reach the end. The Bhāgavata is itself an instance of this enumeration; it confesses, mid-recital, its own incompletability. A holy text that knows it cannot end is a Vaiṣṇava text.