Srila Prabhupada - "The sages in those days were tri-kāla-jñā. Tri-kāla-jñā means they could understand, they could know what was in the past, what there shall be in the future, and what is at present."

The great sages and devotees in previous ages thousands of years ago were "tri-kāla-jñā".

Tri-kāla-jñā means they could understand -

1 - What was in the past,

2 - What there shall be in the future,

3 - And what is at present.

Srila Prabhupada - ''So the point is that five thousand years ago the things which were written for this age, how they are coming to be true in our experience. That is the point: how they could see past, present, and future so nicely.

The sages were known as tri-kāla-jñā. Tri means three. There is almost similarity, tri and three. Tri is Sanskrit, and three is English or Latin, but there is similarity. Tri-kāla-jñā.

Tri means three, and kāla means time.

Time is experienced by three ways: past, present and future. Time limitation, past, present and future. Whenever you speak of time, it is past, present or future.

So the sages in those days were tri-kāla-jñā. Tri-kāla-jñā means they could understand, they could know what was in the past, what there shall be in the future, and what is at present.

Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa says,

"My Dear Arjuna, you, Me, I, and all these kings and soldiers who have assembled in this battlefield, they were all individuals, and we are still individual. And in this past, in the future, we shall all remain individuals."

That past, present, and future, he explained.

Another place Kṛṣṇa says, vedāhaṁ samatītāni (BG 7.26). Atītāni, atītāni means past. Vartamānāni ca, "and present." So that is yogic power.

One CAN know past, present, and future''. SB 12.2.1 -- San Francisco, March 18, 1968