---
type: Concept
bundle: cosmology-creation
bundle_version: "0.7.2"
id: kala
title: "Kāla — काल"
iast: "Kāla"
devanagari: "काल"
description: "Cosmic time as a primordial principle and deity; not linear clock-time but the cyclic, all-consuming force that governs manifestation, measures Yugas and Kalpas, and is identical with Mahākāla (Śiva as the great destroyer); time that devours all things while being itself uncaused."
darshana:
  - Purāṇic
  - Vedānta
  - Śaiva
school_scope: "Universal across Purāṇas; Mahākāla is primarily Śaiva; the Bhāgavata presents Kāla as Viṣṇu's own power (BhP 3.10-11)"
text_source: "AV 19.53-54 (Kāla Sūkta); BhP 3.10.11; BG 11.32"
tags: [cosmology, time, kala, yuga, mahakala, puranic, vedic]
not:
  - term: "time (clock / linear)"
    why: "English 'time' is linear, uniform, and directionless. Kāla is cyclic, hierarchically structured (Nimeṣa → Kalā → Muhūrta → Yuga → Kalpa), and ultimately the force that dissolves everything back into Brahman; it is not a neutral medium but an active cosmic power."
    instead: "Translate as 'cosmic time' or 'Kāla' and specify whether the context is the Yuga-Kalpa cycle, the destroyer-aspect (Mahākāla), or the yogic dissolution of individual time."
  - term: "Kāla = death / Yama"
    why: "Yama is the deity of the dead; Kāla is the cosmic principle of time that makes death possible. They intersect (Mahākāla = Śiva who absorbs even Yama) but are distinct. Conflating them flattens a cosmological principle into a mythological figure."
  - term: "Kali (Kali Yuga / goddess Kālī)"
    why: "Kāla (long ā) = time-principle; Kali (short a) = the fourth Yuga; Kālī (long ā, feminine) = the goddess. AI training data routinely conflates these three orthographically related terms. They share etymology (from kāla = time/black) but are distinct concepts."
related:
  - /concepts/yuga.md
  - /concepts/kalpa.md
  - /concepts/pralaya.md
  - /concepts/mahayuga.md
  - /concepts/avatara.md
  - /concepts/sapta-loka.md
timestamp: "2026-07-01"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Kāla — काल

**Not:** time (clock / linear), Kāla = death / Yama, Kali (Kali Yuga / goddess Kālī)

## The Vedic Foundation

The Atharva Veda's Kāla Sūkta (AV 19.53-54) presents Kāla as the primordial cosmic force: "Kāla carries us; Kāla is the father; Kāla is the lord of all." This is not metaphor — it is a cosmological declaration that time is not a neutral container but the active generative and dissolving force behind all manifestation.

Kāla here is not measured; it measures. It is not in creation; creation is in it.

## What Kāla Actually Is

Kāla in the Purāṇic-Vedāntic framework has three inter-related dimensions:

**1. The cosmic measurer:** Kāla governs the structure of cosmic time — from the smallest unit (Nimeṣa, the blink of an eye) through Kalā, Muhūrta, Ahorātra, up through the vast Yuga, Mahāyuga, Manvantara, and Kalpa scales. This is not arbitrary division; each scale of time has corresponding cosmological events.

**2. The cosmic force:** Kāla is the power (Śakti) by which Brahman actualizes the cycles of Sṛṣṭi-Sthiti-Saṃhāra. In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (BhP 3.10.11), Kāla is enumerated as the twenty-sixth tattva — beyond the twenty-five of Sāṃkhya — as Viṣṇu's own directive power (svaśakti) that initiates creation by "glancing" at the unmanifest Avyakta.

**3. The cosmic destroyer:** Mahākāla is Śiva's aspect as the Great Time that devours all things, including smaller cycles of time. This is encoded in BG 11.32 — Kṛṣṇa declares in the Viśvarūpa vision: "I am Kāla, the world-destroyer, grown mighty." Not threatening — cosmologically accurate.

## Why Common Translations Fail

Western "time" is linear, uniform, and passive — a container for events. Kāla is:
- Cyclic: governed by Yuga-Kalpa rhythms, not a line from past to future
- Active: Kāla acts; it does not merely pass
- Hierarchical: different scales of Kāla govern different scales of reality
- Conscious: Mahākāla is not merely a force but a divine manifestation

Translating Kāla as "time" without qualification erases all of this.

## Kāla and Liberation

The Ātyantika (absolute) dissolution — individual liberation — is the transcendence of Kāla. The liberated jīva steps outside the Yuga-Kalpa cycle entirely. This is why Mokṣa is described as timeless (kālātīta). Kāla rules the bound; liberation is freedom from Kāla's measure.

## Audience Metaphor

Not a river flowing from past to future. Kāla is better understood as a vast rotating wheel whose revolution generates all the nested cycles of cosmic time — Yugas within Mahāyugas, Mahāyugas within Kalpas, Kalpas within Brahmā's lifetime — while the axle of the wheel, Brahman, remains motionless. The wheel turns; the axle does not. Everything on the rim is consumed; only the center is untouched.

## Citations

1. Atharva Veda 19.53-54 — Kāla Sūkta; primary Vedic text presenting Kāla as cosmic principle
2. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3.10.11 — Kāla as the twenty-sixth tattva; Viṣṇu's directive glance initiating Sṛṣṭi
3. Bhagavad Gītā 11.32 — "Kālo'smi loka-kṣaya-kṛt pravṛddho" (Kṛṣṇa's declaration as Mahākāla)
4. Viṣṇu Purāṇa 1.2-3 — Kāla in the cosmological time-reckoning system
5. See references/rigveda-nasadiya.md — time before Kāla in the pre-creation state
6. See references/bhagavata-purana.md — comprehensive Purāṇic treatment
