Kāla-Mahimā: The Greatness of Time

Kāla means time, and kāla-mahimā means “the greatness of time”: its power and rule over everything. It is a central teaching of the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, which looks at it from two sides. In the chapters of the 3rd Skandha (book) on creation, Maitreya Ṛṣi describes the divisions of time and the huge scale of the universe. And in Bhagavān Kapila’s teaching to his mother Devahūti, time is shown as a path to liberation, because kāla is named as Bhagavān Viṣṇu’s own vibhūti (divine expression).

Every created being, from the smallest creature to Brahmā himself, is under the rule of kāla. Nothing in the visible world escapes it. Yet the jñānin (one who knows the truth) sees that kāla is Bhagavān Viṣṇu’s own form. So he does not fear it. He honours it as Bhagavān Viṣṇu’s presence within the order of the universe.

Kāla as Bhagavān Viṣṇu’s Vibhūti

In Kapila’s teaching to Devahūti, kāla is not a lifeless force of nature. It is one of Bhagavān Viṣṇu’s direct expressions, his vibhūti in the realm of time:

“All the elements tremble before kāla: ākāśa, vāyu, agni, ap, pṛthivī. All of Prakṛti’s products are subject to it. Not Brahmā, not Rudra, not Indra, not any being born in the universe can escape it. Kāla is not something separate from Bhagavān Viṣṇu; it is Bhagavān Viṣṇu’s own form in his role as the impartial measure and conclusion of all created existence.”

(The five elements named are space, air, fire, water and earth. Prakṛti is nature, the source of the material world.)

Seeing kāla this way changes its meaning completely. Death, the most feared of all the forms of kāla, is not an enemy. It is Bhagavān Viṣṇu himself arriving in one of his forms. The one who sees this does not shrink from time but bows before it.

The Structure of Time

In the 3rd Skandha, Maitreya teaches Vidura the divisions of time. Their sheer scale shows how far the rule of kāla reaches.

The smallest divisions:

  • Paramāṇu: the smallest division of time, the time light takes to cross the smallest particle of matter
  • Aṇu: two paramāṇus
  • Trasareṇu: three aṇus (the smallest speck that can be seen in a sunbeam)
  • Truṭi: the time taken to cross three trasareṇus at the speed of the universe
  • Larger and larger divisions, vedha, lava, nimeṣa (the blink of an eye), kāṣṭhā, laghu, nāḍikā (ghaṭikā), muhūrta and prahara, build up to the human day, month and year

The largest divisions:

  • A human year = one day and night for the pitṛs (ancestors)
  • A divine year = 360 human years
  • A Mahāyuga (Caturyuga, the four ages together) = 12,000 divine years (4,320,000 human years): Kṛta (4,800) + Tretā (3,600) + Dvāpara (2,400) + Kali (1,200) divine years
  • A Manvantara (the reign of one Manu) = 71 Mahāyugas, about 306 million human years
  • A Kalpa (one day of Brahmā) = 14 Manvantaras plus the twilight periods between them = 4.32 billion human years
  • Brahmā’s whole life = 100 divine years of 360 kalpas each, a span beyond ordinary understanding

Even across this unthinkably vast span, kāla works without a break. At the end of his life, Brahmā himself is dissolved by kāla.

Kāla Plays No Favourites

One of the most striking points in the Bhāgavata’s teaching is that kāla is completely impartial. It does not favour:

  • The learned over the ignorant
  • The good over those who do pāpa
  • The devotee over one who is not a devotee
  • The powerful over the weak

All are measured, and all come to an end. The only difference is what the jīva (the individual soul) carries out of the dissolution, that is, the impressions of karma that decide its next birth, and whether it has reached liberation before kāla’s final measure arrives.

Freedom from Kāla

The Bhāgavata teaches that the liberated jīva is no longer under kāla in the ordinary sense. This is the one who has gained brahma-jñāna (knowledge of Brahman), or who has crossed māyā (the power of illusion) through nirguṇa bhakti (pure devotion free of all selfish motive). Time does not stop for such a person. Rather, their sense of being the body and mind, which is what kāla measures, has dissolved. The ātman (the true Self) is itself akāla, beyond time. It was not born, it does not die, and it does not age. Kāla rules over all that Prakṛti produces, but it does not reach Puruṣa (pure spirit).

This is the freeing teaching hidden inside kāla-mahimā. The one who fears kāla is the one who takes himself to be what kāla rules. The one who sees that the ātman is one with Bhagavān Viṣṇu sees in kāla only another face of Bhagavān Viṣṇu, and is free.

Sources

  • Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 3rd Skandha, Chapter 11
  • Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 3rd Skandha, Chapter 29