Kāla

Kāla, “time that moves all”

Kalā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Kalā.

Kāla means time, and also fate: the power that brings every event in its turn. It is the highest cause, ruling over all creation and dissolution, and every created being, from the smallest creature to Brahmā himself, is under its rule.

The Agni Purāṇa tells that Brahmā made Kāla at the very beginning of creation, together with mind and speech. At the close of his account of the kings of the Pūru line, Agni Deva teaches Vasishṭha Maharshi that every one of those kings has passed away, seized by Kāla, and that Kāla is the form of Bhagavān Vishṇu; therefore Bhagavān Vishṇu alone is to be worshipped. To Kāla no one is dear and no one hateful: when the span of life is complete, no medicine or mantra can hold death back.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa speaks of Kāla in every one of its twelve skandhas. It names Kāla the śakti of Bhagavān Vishṇu and Bhagavān Vishṇu himself. By Kāla, Bhagavān Vishṇu stirs the balanced guṇas of prakṛti so that creation begins, and by Kāla he withdraws the worlds at pralaya. Kāla is the cakra in his hand, the wheel of time that takes away the life of every being from Brahmā down to a blade of grass, and every ruler of the worlds stands under its command. Bhagavān Kapila teaches it to his mother Devahūti, Maitreya Maharshi to Vidura, and Śrī Kṛshṇa to Uddhava, and Kuntī, Prahlāda, Devakī, Indra, Rukmiṇī and many others praise Śrī Hari as Kāla. Yet Kāla does not touch the one who has taken refuge at his feet, and the ātmā is beyond Kāla.

The Bhavishya Purāṇa teaches that kāla is one and formless, itself a form of Parameśvara, divided by limiting conditions into many forms, and that tithi, nakshatra and vāra are its limbs. Karma done at its fixed time gives its full fruit, and kāla is the main door of dharma and adharma. The Parama Purusha creates as Brahmā and brings all to an end as Kāla, and the devas praise Bhagavān Sūrya as Kāla. Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Yudhishṭhira that none escapes Kāla, that for Kāla-mṛtyu there is no remedy, and that since everything is under Kāla no sorrow should be felt.

Per Mahābhārata

In the Mahābhārata, Kāla (Time) is the highest cause and the fate that cannot be escaped, ruling over all creation and dissolution. At the close of the Mausala Parva (the book of the Mahābhārata that tells of the end of Śrī Kṛshṇa‘s clan), Vyāsa Ṛshi teaches Arjuna that Kāla is the seed and the root of the whole world.

Kāla is the source of both good fortune and ruin. Before it even the mightiest are helpless. By its decree the Vṛshṇis (Kṛshṇa’s people) perished, and Kṛshṇa laid aside his earthly form.

Kāla as the Root of All

Arjuna was broken with grief at the ruin of the Vṛshṇis and the departure of Kṛshṇa. He came to Vyāsa‘s āśrama (hermitage) and begged for advice. The ṛshi taught him that this whole world has Kāla for its seed and its root. Kāla brings forth all that is, and in its own time Kāla draws everything back into itself. Time is Īśvara itself. At one moment one is strong, at another weak. By the working of Kāla the mighty become feeble and the feeble mighty. And even the master of Time moves in turn by a higher law.

Vyāsa taught further that in a time of good fortune, intelligence, tejas (radiance and vigour) and courage arise by themselves, while in a time of ruin they fail and come to nothing. So, he advised, one should not grieve for what passes away. The dissolution of beings is the work of Time, and it is not fitting to grieve for the destruction of what is destined to be destroyed.

The Working of Kāla in the Mausala Parva

All through the Mausala Parva the hand of Kāla can be seen. Omens troubled Dvārakā in the thirty-sixth year of Yudhishṭhira‘s reign. Kāla was said to roam through the houses of the Vṛshṇis and Andhakas in terrible forms, seen and unseen, as the destroyer of all beings, whom even the mightiest archers could not strike down. Driven by Kāla, the kinsmen quarrelled at Prabhāsa and killed one another with the musala (iron club) born of a curse. Driven by Kāla, the Gāṇḍīva bow failed in Arjuna‘s hands at Pañcanada. Kṛshṇa himself read the omens and saw that Kāla was ripe and the appointed hour had come.

Why It Matters

Kāla is the heart of the teaching of the Mausala Parva. It is the truth that turns the sorrow of the destruction into understanding. The ruin of the Vṛshṇis came about through a brāhmaṇa’s curse, but in the end it is the working of Time, which even Kṛshṇa did not wish to turn aside. To know Kāla as the root of everything is to accept that empires and heroes, weapons and fortunes all rise and dissolve in their season. The wise neither cling nor grieve, but recognise the appointed hour of their own going.

Per Bhāgavata Purāṇa

Kāla-mahimā means “the greatness of time”: its power and rule over everything. It is a central teaching of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which looks at it from two sides. In the chapters of Skandha 3 on creation, Maitreya Ṛshi 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 moksha (liberation), because kāla is named as Bhagavān Vishṇu‘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 Vishṇu’s own form. So he does not fear it. He honours it as Bhagavān Vishṇu’s presence within the order of the universe.

Kāla as Bhagavān Vishṇu’s Vibhūti

In Kapila‘s teaching to Devahūti, kāla is not a lifeless force of nature. It is one of Bhagavān Vishṇu‘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 Vishṇu; it is Bhagavān Vishṇu’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 Vishṇu himself arriving in one of his forms. The one who sees this does not shrink from time but bows before it.

The teaching comes in answer to Devahūti’s own question. Having heard the Sāṅkhya account of the tattvas, she asked Bhagavān Kapila for three things: the path of bhakti-yoga in full, the gatis (destinies) of the jīvas in saṃsāra, and the nature of kāla, “which rules even Brahmā and the other lords of the worlds, which is not different from you, Sarveśvara (Lord of all), and by whose power people do puṇya.” Maitreya tells Vidura that Kapila, pleased with his mother’s words, answered her.

Kapila taught that prakṛti, the purusha beyond it, and daiva, the unseen support of the fruits of the jīva’s karma, are all forms of Bhagavān Vishṇu. Kāla is the name of Bhagavān Vishṇu’s wondrous power that makes his māyā-śakti rise as this universe of many forms. Those who see difference, and the presiding devatās of the tattvas beginning with mahat, stand in fear of it. Kāla, the support of all, enters within beings and destroys them through the five bhūtas themselves. It rules even Brahmā and the others who rule the world, and that kāla is Vishṇu, the giver of the fruit of yajña. For kāla no one is dear and no one an enemy, and it has no kin. It is ever wakeful, and it enters and destroys the man who is sunk in bhogas (enjoyments) and has forgotten himself.

Through fear of Bhagavān Vishṇu in the form of kāla:

1. the wind blows;
2. Sūrya gives his heat;
3. Indra sends rain;
4. the stars shine;
5. trees, plants and creepers bring forth flowers and fruits, each in its time;
6. the rivers flow;
7. the ocean does not cross its shore;
8. fire burns;
9. the earth with its mountains does not sink in the waters;
10. obeying kāla’s command, ākāśa (space) gives room to beings;
11. the mahat-tattva, subject to kāla, spreads out its body, ahaṅkāra, as the brahmāṇḍa (cosmic egg) with its seven coverings;
12. under the rule of kāla, Brahmā, Vishṇu and Rudra, the presiding ones of rajas, sattva and tamas, carry out in each kalpa the creation, preservation and dissolution of this world, and the world of moving and unmoving beings is in their charge.

Kāla brings an end to all and itself has no end. It gives birth to all and itself has no beginning. It has no growth and no decay. Through the father it brings the son to birth, and through death it brings death even to those that kill, such as the tiger, and even to Yamadharmarāja.

Kapila had spoken of kāla before this. Of the devotees who take refuge in him he said: “They live in my Vaikuṇṭha-dhāma, full of peace. Kāla, which is my weapon, does not touch them.” In his account of the tattvas he named kāla the twenty-fifth tattva, and said that some call kāla the glory of the Purusha. Before creation the guṇas of prakṛti stand in balance. It is Bhagavān Vishṇu himself who brings movement into that balance, and Bhagavān Vishṇu, as the cause of that stirring, is what is spoken of as kāla. By his māyā-śakti he pervades beings, within them as the Purusha and without them as kāla. The jīva, through avidyā (ignorance), takes himself to be prakṛti, thinks he is the doer of what the guṇas do, and so fears kāla. Kardama Prajāpati, too, praised Kapila: pradhāna, the Purusha who presides over it, the mahat-tattva, kāla that stirs pradhāna, the three ahaṅkāras and the lokapālas are all his forms.

After the teaching Kapila went on. As clouds driven by a strong wind do not know the wind’s power, so the jīva, whirled round and round in saṃsāra by kāla, does not know kāla’s great power. Whatever a man earns with toil, hoping for happiness, daiva in the form of kāla wipes away, and only sorrow is left to him. At the close Kapila said that he had told bhakti-yoga in four kinds, three saguṇa and one nirguṇa, and the svarūpa (true nature) of kāla, whose workings cannot be known and which brings about birth and every change within beings.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapters 24–26, 29–30, 32

The Structure of Time

In Skandha 3, 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, nimesha (the blink of an eye), kāshṭhā, 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.

Maitreya opened this teaching with the nature of kāla itself. As substance has its smallest part, the paramāṇu, and its greatest whole, so time has a smallest and a largest part. Kāla, the śakti of Bhagavān Vishṇu, is itself Bhagavān Vishṇu. All-powerful, it pervades all created things and sets their limits. The time that pervades one paramāṇu is the smallest measure of time, and the time that pervades the world from its creation to its pralaya is the largest. Sūrya, whose form is kāla, goes round the circle of the sky with the grahas and the nakshatras, and by his circling the wheel of time, from its subtlest part to the year, is set going. He is present as the five kinds of year, saṃvatsara, parivatsara, iḍāvatsara, anuvatsara and vatsara, and Maitreya bids men offer him pūjā.

One day of Brahmā is a thousand caturyugas, and his night is as long. Fourteen Manus pass in his day, each holding authority for about seventy-one caturyugas, and in these manvantaras Bhagavān Vishṇu, resting on sattva, protects the world through his mūrtis such as Manu. At the close of the day Brahmā withdraws from creation, and by the force of kāla all things merge into him. Brahmā’s life is a hundred years by the measure of Brahmaloka. Its two halves are the parārdhas, and the first has passed. Yet for Śrīhari, the cause of all causes, without beginning and end, the two parārdhas are spoken of, as a figure, as one blink of the eye: he has no life-span to be measured. This kāla, from the subtlest part of time to two parārdhas, is all-powerful, but it has no sway over Parabrahma, who is not limited by time. It rules the ignorant who cling to the body and the house as “I” and “mine”. Closing, Maitreya told Vidura: “Until now I have described to you the vibhūti of Parameśvara called kāla.”

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapters 11–12

Kāla in creation and dissolution

Vidura asked Maitreya to explain exactly the power called kāla of Śrī Hari, who appears in many forms doing wondrous līlās. Maitreya answered that the change that comes in prakṛti, made of sattva, rajas and tamas, is the form of kāla. Kāla has no beginning and no end, and in truth no parts. Making kāla the material, Bhagavān Vishṇu by līlā reveals himself as the world. By the māyā of Bhagavān Vishṇu the universe had merged and remained in the form of Brahmā alone, and through kāla he made it appear as separate again. Through kāla, dravya (substance) and the guṇas, in order, come the three pralayas: nitya (constant), naimittika (occasional) and prākṛta (of prakṛti).

Brahmā teaches Nārada the same truth. Dravya, kāla, kriyā (action), avidyā or jīva: nothing truly exists apart from Vāsudeva. Wishing to manifest, Parameśvara took up as the causes of creation kāla, which had lain merged in him by his own will, the karmāśayas (stored karma) of the jīvas, and their svabhāva (nature). Kāla, grounded in Para-brahman, disturbed the balance of the guṇas in prakṛti, and transformation began. From vāyu, changed under kāla, karma and svabhāva, came agni with rūpa, sparśa and śabda. When the brahmāṇḍa lay lifeless in the waters, after twelve years Parameśvara, taking up kāla, karma and svabhāva, gave it life. Kāla, māyā, effect and cause, the mahat-tattva, ahaṅkāra, the five elements, the three guṇas, the senses and all moving and unmoving beings are forms of Parabrahma. Śuka tells Parīkshit that the bhūtas, the karmāśaya of the jīvas, kāla, svabhāva and the jīva himself live by the grace of Nārāyaṇa and have no existence apart from Brahman, and that kāla is what disturbs the balance of sattva, rajas and tamas.

Maitreya tells Vidura how creation began. By the influence of kāla, movement arose in the māyā-śakti of three guṇas, over which caitanya (consciousness) presides. By kāla’s impulse the mahat-tattva rose out of the unmanifest. Ākāśa was born of the union of kāla, the māyā-śakti as tāmasa ahaṅkāra, and cidābhāsa (the reflection of consciousness), under Bhagavān Vishṇu’s oversight. The devatās bear vikāra (change), the mark of kāla; vikshepa (projection), the mark of māyā; and cetanā (awareness), the mark of cidābhāsa. Then Bhagavān Vishṇu, the all-powerful, took up his divine power named Kāla and entered at one stroke all the twenty-three tattvas, and with Kāla, the karma of the jīvas and his own power he appeared as the Virāṭ by his Yogamāyā. Nārāyaṇa, who had rested in the waters of pralaya for a thousand mahāyugas, stirred his power called Kāla at the beginning of creation, and Kāla brought him to the work by which the fruits of the jīvas’ karma become manifest. Maitreya also names three causes of the first stirring: karma-gati (the course of karma), the Purusha who presides over prakṛti, and Kāla.

The same teaching comes again in the later skandhas. Pṛthu tells his people that Īśvara’s māyā-śakti, kāla which stirs it, the vāsanās of the jīva and his prārabdha karma together make the body arise. Prahlāda praises Narasiṃha: by the assent of the Purushottama, a disturbance of the guṇas in the māyā-śakti, impelled by kāla, made the liṅga-śarīra (subtle body) of karma-vāsanās; impelled by his power in the form of kāla, the guṇas were stirred. Devakī, praising the child born to her, says that when, by the speed of time, Brahmā’s life of two parārdhas is complete, the brahmāṇḍa dissolves step by step into the māyā-śakti and he alone remains, which is why his name is Śesha, “the one who remains”. All time, from the blink of an eye up to the year, by which the world turns, is his līlā. The yogīśvara Antariksha teaches King Nimi that at the mahāpralaya kāla, without beginning or end, dissolves the world of name and form into the māyā-śakti, and that Īśvara in the form of kāla takes away śabda (sound), so that ākāśa merges in the tāmasa ahaṅkāra. Dattātreya teaches Yadu that Nārāyaṇa creates the world at the beginning of the kalpa, and at its end withdraws it into himself by his śakti called Kāla and remains One, without a second. By Kāla he brings the guṇas to equilibrium, and that is pralaya. At the beginning of creation, by Kāla, his own greatness, he stirs the māyā-śakti and with it brings forth Hiraṇyagarbha, that is, Brahmā.

Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava the whole of it in his own words. Īśvara, who stirs the guṇas, is of the form of time, and when Kāla agitated the balanced guṇas of pradhāna, the mahat-tattva appeared. “Impelled by the prārabdha karma of the jīvas, I, who am Kāla in form, stirred prakṛti from its state of balance. I, who am Kāla and the giver of the fruits of karma, joined this world with the fruits of karma.” Of this world prakṛti is the material cause, the Purushottama the ground, and Kāla makes it manifest: “those three, prakṛti, purusha and kāla, are I myself, the Parabrahman.” At pralaya, “I, who am Kāla, envelop the Virāṭ Purusha“, and the worlds dissolve in order: the mahat-tattva into the guṇas, the guṇas into prakṛti, prakṛti into imperishable Kāla, Kāla into saguṇa Īśvara, who sets māyā going, and Īśvara into Śrī Kṛshṇa himself, the unborn Paramātmā.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapters 5–6, 10; Skandha 3, Chapters 5–6, 8, 10, 20; Skandha 4, Chapter 21; Skandha 7, Chapter 9; Skandha 10, Chapter 3; Skandha 11, Chapters 3, 9, 22, 24

Kāla, the form and weapon of Bhagavān Vishṇu

Brahmā, searching in the endless darkness for the source of his lotus, came to know that this Kāla of three forms, past, future and present, is the weapon in the hand of Bhagavān Vishṇu. It frightens the jīvas who take the body for the self, and takes away their span of life. When at last he had darśana, Brahmā praised Śrī Hari: the man who has no faith in the ārādhana of Bhagavān Vishṇu and does forbidden karmas, kāla at once cuts off his hope of living; “kāla is very mighty; salutation to Bhagavān Vishṇu, whose very form is that kāla.” Brahmaloka stands for two parārdhas, Brahmā said, and its lord too is under the rule of kāla: “that kāla is your own form.”

The wheel of time is the cakra of Śrī Hari. Jaḍabharata tells King Rahūgaṇa that time, from the paramāṇu to Brahmā’s life-span of a thousand kalpas, turning like a wheel, is the cakrāyudha (discus weapon) of Śrī Hari, Sarveśvara. Never stopping, this kālacakra swiftly takes away the age of all beings, from Brahmā down to a blade of grass, even as they watch. Śuka tells Parīkshit that Śrī Hari himself, manifest in forms such as Bhadrakālī, with the unstopping wheel of time as his great weapon, protects the mahātmās who know no enmity and wish all beings well. Kāla, which never blinks, is the śakti of Bhagavān Vishṇu; its speed is beyond the senses, and it whirls round all the shining maṇḍalas of the grahas and the nakshatras. At the close of the tenth skandha Śuka says that for Śrī Kṛshṇa, whose weapon is the cakra that is Kāla, lightening the earth’s burden is no wonder.

Svāyambhuva Manu teaches his grandson Dhruva the same truth. By Parameśvara’s power in the form of time the balance of the guṇas is broken, and creation, sustenance and dissolution arise; yet he creates without being a doer and withdraws without being a destroyer, and his līlās are beyond imagining. Bhagavān Vishṇu as time has no birth, no change and no destruction. He becomes the creator by causing one being to be born through another, and the destroyer by having even those who kill killed by another being in the form of death. As time he has entered all beings equally, with no partiality of “my own” and “other”. As dust follows the wind, beings bound by karma run after Īśvara, who is time, and are swept along in its stream. According to karma he lengthens life in bodies such as those of devas and shortens it in bodies such as those of worms. The Vaiśeshikas call this one Īśvara kāla, Manu says, as others call him karma, svabhāva, daiva or kāma; all accept Īśvara, and the dispute is only about the name. Outwardly Īśvara is death, as time; within, he is the deathless, as consciousness.

Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that the long-lasting lokas and the lokapālas are under his rule, and so is Brahmā, whose life is two parārdhas, a thousand kalpas. When the guṇas fall into imbalance, he alone is described as kāla, Paramātmā, jīva, Veda, loka, svabhāva and dharma. The yogī who holds dhāraṇā (fixed contemplation) on him who rules the three worlds as Kāla gains īśitva, the siddhi of ruling over bodies and jīvas.

In the Virāṭ form, Śuka tells Parīkshit, Kāla is his movement. Brahmā’s stuti of the Virāṭ Purusha says that from his eyelids arose Kāla, and the stotra of the Prajāpatis to Bhagavān Śiva says that time is Śiva’s movement. Through the whole Purāṇa those who praise Śrī Hari name him Kāla:

• Kuntī: he is Parameśvara, Kāla, without beginning or end, all-pervading, moving equally in all beings (Skandha 1, Chapter 8).
• The citizens of Dvārakā: even the shadow of Kāla, which swallows Brahmā and the others, does not fall on Śrī Kṛshṇa (Skandha 1, Chapter 11).
• Uddhava: Śrī Kṛshṇa is Kāla, Mṛtyu (death) itself, yet in his līlā he made his home in the fortress of Dvārakā as though he had enemies (Skandha 3, Chapter 4).
• The devas: the elements, the three worlds and the devas from Brahmā onward offer pūjā to Śrī Hari under the rule of Kāla, yet Kāla itself is afraid of Śrī Hari, their refuge; Śrī Hari, whose form is Kāla, gives the fruit of yajña and has many beautiful names (Skandha 6, Chapter 9).
• Prahlāda: this Īśvara is Kāla, who measured the three worlds in two steps, and the strength of the senses, mind, courage and body (Skandha 7, Chapter 8); Narasiṃha, the form of Kāla, holds all effects and causes in his control and destroys them all, and with his hand of abhaya (fearlessness) removes from his devotees’ hearts the fear of Kāla (Skandha 7, Chapter 9).
• Indra: Śrī Kṛshṇa is the father, guru and supreme ruler of beings, Kāla who holds the daṇḍa (rod of justice) and cannot be overstepped (Skandha 10, Chapter 27).
• Jāmbavān, praising Śrī Kṛshṇa as Śrī Rāma: as Kāla he rules Indra and the other lords, and he is the innermost ātmā of the jīvas (Skandha 10, Chapter 56).
• Bhūdevī: “You are Kāla, Prakṛti and the jīva” (Skandha 10, Chapter 59).
• Rukmiṇī: the proud rich cannot know him, Kāla the destroyer of all; Kāla, moving at the sign of his brows, cuts off the bhogas of Brahmā and the lokapālas, and so, leaving them aside, she chose him (Skandha 10, Chapter 60).
• The kings held by Jarāsandha: man neglects his ārādhana while mighty Kāla, never careless and his own form, cuts off his hope of life (Skandha 10, Chapter 70); freed, they said that Kāla is his form, whose speed cannot be known nor its power crossed; it took their wealth, but by his mercy their pride is gone, and they prayed to remember his feet (Skandha 10, Chapter 73).
• Uddhava: Brahmā for creation and Rudra for pralaya are only instruments; Śrī Kṛshṇa, without form, rules all as Kāla (Skandha 10, Chapter 71).
• The devas: Śrī Kṛshṇa is the Kāla that has the form of the year, of cold, rain and heat, whose speed nothing stops in destroying all (Skandha 11, Chapter 6).
• Mārkaṇḍeya: there is no safety but refuge at his feet, for even Brahmā, whose term is two parārdhas, is under the rule of Kāla, his form (Skandha 12, Chapter 8).

Śrī Kṛshṇa himself tells the gopīs: as the wind brings together clouds, grass, cotton and dust and scatters them again, so the Creator, Time, joins beings and parts them; within beings as the antaryāmī (inner ruler) and outside them as Time, it is he.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 8, 11; Skandha 2, Chapter 1; Skandha 3, Chapters 4, 8–9; Skandha 4, Chapter 11; Skandha 5, Chapters 9, 14, 23; Skandha 6, Chapter 9; Skandha 7, Chapters 8–9; Skandha 8, Chapters 5, 7; Skandha 10, Chapters 27, 56, 59–60, 70–71, 73, 82, 90; Skandha 11, Chapters 6, 10, 15; Skandha 12, Chapter 8

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 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 moksha before kāla’s final measure arrives.

Kapila says it plainly: for kāla no one is dear and no one an enemy, and it has no kin. Svāyambhuva Manu tells Dhruva that Īśvara as time has entered all beings equally, with no partiality of “my own” and “other”. Yet Kapila also says that kāla, his weapon, does not touch the devotees who have taken refuge in him.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapters 25, 29; Skandha 4, Chapter 11

Kāla in the lives of beings

Through the whole Purāṇa, those who tell its accounts show kāla at work in the lives of devas, asuras, kings and ṛshis. In the order of the text:

• Nārada tells Vyāsa that by the force of Kāla, whose speed is beyond the intellect, and by prārabdha karma, sense-happiness comes to the jīva wherever he is, just as sorrow comes. Vyāsa marvels that Kāla, which swallows everything, had not wiped away Nārada’s memory of the past kalpa (Skandha 1, Chapters 5–6).
• Bhīshma tells the Pāṇḍavas that all their suffering is the working of Kāla: as the clouds are under the wind, the world with its lokapālas is under Kāla-purusha (Skandha 1, Chapter 9).
• Nārada teaches Yudhishṭhira that this body of the five bhūtas, under time, prārabdha and the guṇas, cannot protect others, like a man in a python’s mouth (Skandha 1, Chapter 13).
• Śuka tells Parīkshit that body, children and wife cannot fight Kāla. Years lived in ignorance are wasted, and an hour spent knowing the purpose of human birth is greater, for by it a man strives for moksha (Skandha 2, Chapter 1).
• Uddhava, telling Vidura of Śrī Kṛshṇa‘s withdrawal from the world, says: “The sun called Śrī Kṛshṇa has set; the python called Time has swallowed our houses” (Skandha 3, Chapter 2). Vidura says that those turned away from Śrī Hari’s accounts by former pāpa are most to be pitied, for Kālapurusha, in the form of the Sun, wears away their life in vain (Skandha 3, Chapter 5).
• Kubera tells Dhruva that Dhruva did not kill the yakshas, nor did they kill his brother: Time alone governs birth and death. Dhruva saw that body, wife, children, friends, army, treasury, antaḥpura, gardens and an empire to the ocean would all be swallowed by Time. When the vimāna came for him, Kāla, Death, came there in bodily form, and Dhruva placed his foot on its head and mounted the vimāna (Skandha 4, Chapter 12).
• Sanatkumāra teaches Pṛthu that dharma, artha and kāma are under the fear of Kālapurusha and are not eternal, while moksha is eternal and highest; Kālapurusha destroys the wishes of all beings born of the guṇas, from the devatās down to cattle (Skandha 4, Chapter 22).
• Rudra, in the stotra he teaches the Pracetas, says that even Yama, Kāla, does not set out to show his might against one who has taken refuge at the root of Bhagavān Vishṇu‘s feet; and that Bhagavān Vishṇu as Kāla is never careless, and suddenly seizes and swallows the man who is greedy and careless of his own true nature, like a hungry snake a mouse (Skandha 4, Chapter 24).
• In Nārada’s account of Purañjana, told to King Prācīnabarhi, Purañjana did not know the speed of time running as days and nights, for no one can cross beyond time; and Kāla had a daughter, Jarā (old age), whom no one in the three worlds would accept (Skandha 4, Chapter 27). Nārada explains that Kāla has a fierce speed: the year, its measure, is the gandharva king Caṇḍavega, “fierce speed”, with the three hundred and sixty days as his gandharvas and as many nights as gandharvīs; the daughter of Kāla is old age itself; and death is the Yavana king, who took her as his sister for the destruction of living beings (Skandha 4, Chapter 29).
• Ṛshabha teaches his sons that without ārādhana of him a man cannot escape the great delusion, the noose of Kāla (Skandha 5, Chapter 5).
• Bharata, finding the orphaned fawn, said that the swiftly turning wheel of time had parted it from its herd and brought it to him. At the end, like a snake entering a rat’s hole, the time of death came upon him, for no one can pass beyond Kāla, whose speed is terrible (Skandha 5, Chapter 8).
• Jaḍabharata teaches Rahūgaṇa that as the fruit of karma ripened by time, the mind shows pleasure, pain or delusion; that by substances, nature, saṃskāras, time and karma its changes are of countless kinds; and that the māyā-śakti, taking the names of the five elements, the natures of beings, saṃskāras, time and the fruit of karma, imagines this manifoldness (Skandha 5, Chapters 11–12). In his account of the forest of saṃsāra, the man, afraid of kāla, passes over Śrī Hari, Yajñeśvara (Skandha 5, Chapter 14).
• Bali in Sutala says: “Kāla is endless. What are these three worlds, which end with a manvantara, before it?” (Skandha 5, Chapter 24).
• The Yamadūtas tell the Vishṇudūtas that Kāla is one of the witnesses of the karma of the jīva, with Sūrya, Agni, Ākāśa, Vāyu, the indriyas, Candra), sandhyā, day and night, the directions, water, Pṛthivī and Dharma (Skandha 6, Chapter 1).
• Yama tells his dūtas not to go near the devotees of Bhagavān Vishṇu: neither they nor Kāla can punish them (Skandha 6, Chapter 3).
• Vṛtra, in battle, teaches Indra that all people, rulers too, are like birds in a net under kāla, which alone causes victory and defeat, and that kāla itself is in a man as strength of mind, senses and body, prāṇa, life and death (Skandha 6, Chapter 12).
• Prahlāda teaches the asura boys that by Kāla, the form of Īśvara, the body passes through six changes, as fruits do: birth, existing, growth, maturing, decay and perishing; the ātmā is beyond Kāla and does not decay (Skandha 7, Chapter 7). In his stotra to Narasiṃha he speaks of the well of saṃsāra, in which lives the serpent called Kāla, and of how Nārada saved him from falling into it (Skandha 7, Chapter 9).
• Nārada tells Yudhishṭhira that the sannyāsī should welcome neither life nor death and should only wait for Kāla; and Dattātreya tells Prahlāda that for a man whom death always follows there is no freedom from sorrow, and wealth and pleasures gain him nothing (Skandha 7, Chapter 13).
• When the devas took refuge in Śrī Hari, he told them that at present Kāla had favoured the asuras of the lines of Diti and Danu (Skandha 8, Chapter 6).
• Bali told Indra in battle that to all who fight, impelled by Kāla, fame, victory, defeat and death come in turn, and that the wise, knowing that Kāla controls them, neither leap with joy nor sink in grief (Skandha 8, Chapter 11).
• Bhagavān Vishṇu told Aditi that the asura commanders could not be conquered at once, for Īśvara as Kāla and able knowers of the Veda, favourable to them, protected them (Skandha 8, Chapter 17).
• Bali told Śukrācārya that Kāla swallowed the pleasures of the brave asuras of old, but not the kīrti (fame) they won (Skandha 8, Chapter 20). When the asuras rose against Vāmana’s attendants, Bali held them back: “This time is not favourable to us. It is kāla that gives joy and sorrow to all beings; a man cannot overcome it by his own effort. Kāla once gave us good fortune and the dwellers of svarga sorrow; today it gives us sorrow and the devas prosperity. No army, ministers, intelligence, forts, mantras, herbs or yantras, nor sāma, dāna, bheda and daṇḍa, can overcome kāla. Wait for the time that will favour our work.” The asura commanders obeyed and entered Rasātala (Skandha 8, Chapter 21).
• Śrī Rāma told Rāvaṇa in battle that no one can transgress the power of Kāla, which surely gives the doer the fruit of his karma, and that this day he would give him that fruit (Skandha 9, Chapter 10).
• Parīkshit, asking Śuka for Śrī Kṛshṇa’s deeds, says that within beings Śrī Hari dwells as the ātmā and gives moksha to those who see him so, while outside them he is the parts of time and gives only death to those turned outward; and that, moving on earth, Śrī Hari would destroy the earth’s burden by his power called Kāla (Skandha 10, Chapter 1).
• In the mouth of Bāla-Kṛshṇa, Yaśodā saw at the root of the different forms of beings the jīva, his ajñāna, kāla, the karmas and their vāsanās (Skandha 10, Chapter 8). When Brahmā came back, after what was by his own measure only one moment, Kāla, svabhāva, saṃskāra, the desires, karma, the guṇas and jāti took form and adored the forms of Śrī Kṛshṇa that he saw, and their own glory paled before them (Skandha 10, Chapter 13).
• Seeing Śrī Kṛshṇa and Balarāma close behind him like Kāla and Yama, the foolish Śaṅkhacūḍa was afraid, left the gopīs and fled for his life (Skandha 10, Chapter 34).
• The devas had told King Mucukunda, when they released him from guarding them, that all who lived in his time had passed away with time: all-powerful Time, strongest of the strong and imperishable, the very form of Bhagavān Vishṇu, keeps all beings under its control as if at play, as a herdsman keeps his cattle, and only Śrī Hari, who is beyond Time, can give moksha. Woken in the cave, Mucukunda praised Śrī Kṛshṇa and confessed that he had roamed the earth proud of his armies and taken no account of him who is Time in form. Time never forgets: as a hungry snake swallows a mouse, it swallows the greedy, careless man, and the body once called king on golden chariots becomes, by the power of Time, bird-droppings, worms or ash (Skandha 10, Chapter 51).
• Jarāsandha, consoling Śiśupāla after the kings’ defeat, said that he felt neither sorrow nor joy, knowing that Kāla, set in motion by prārabdha, keeps the world in turmoil; that day the enemies had won because Kāla was favourable to them (Skandha 10, Chapter 54).
• Camasa teaches King Nimi that the ignorant spend their wealth on enjoyments and do not see Kāla, whose power is never blunted, swallowing the body, and that Kāla destroys the desires of those who take ignorance for knowledge (Skandha 11, Chapter 5).
• Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that even on the view of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsakas, by time and the body all beings are born, grow and perish again and again, so sorrow cannot be avoided; and that when the puṇya of a jīva in svarga is spent, time throws him down against his will (Skandha 11, Chapter 10).
• Śuka tells Parīkshit that Kāla is mighty: as the Kali age goes on, dharma, truth, purity, patience, dayā (compassion), life-span, strength and memory perish, and Kāla turns all the mighty kings into mere names in the recited accounts (Skandha 12, Chapter 2). Parīkshit then asked about the yugas, pralaya, the kalpas and the course of Kāla, the form of Īśvara, and Śuka taught that the three guṇas in a person change in body and mind under the push of Kāla (Skandha 12, Chapter 3).
• Inside the divine child, Mārkaṇḍeya saw the five elements, the bodies of beings, and Time, reckoned in many yugas and kalpas (Skandha 12, Chapter 9).
• Sūta‘s account of the contents of the Purāṇa names, among the subjects of Skandha 3, the nature of Time, gross and subtle (Skandha 12, Chapter 12).

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 5–6, 9, 13; Skandha 2, Chapter 1; Skandha 3, Chapters 2, 5; Skandha 4, Chapters 12, 22, 24, 27, 29; Skandha 5, Chapters 5, 8, 11–12, 14, 24; Skandha 6, Chapters 1, 3, 12; Skandha 7, Chapters 7, 9, 13; Skandha 8, Chapters 6, 11, 17, 20–21; Skandha 9, Chapter 10; Skandha 10, Chapters 1, 8, 13, 34, 51, 54; Skandha 11, Chapters 5, 10; Skandha 12, Chapters 2–3, 9, 12

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 Purusha (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 Vishṇu sees in kāla only another face of Bhagavān Vishṇu, and is free.

The Purāṇa returns to this again and again. Śuka tells Parīkshit that Kāla, which rules even the devatās, cannot bring the ātma-svarūpa under its sway, and that in Vaikuṇṭha the destroying power of kāla does not hold. When a person is established in the conscious Self beyond time and prakṛti, delusion goes; he casts off “I” and “mine” and stays beyond the guṇas. Uddhava praises Śrī Kṛshṇa as the one whose Vaikuṇṭha time cannot touch.

Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Uddhava, in the words of Dattātreya, that clouds and dust tossed by the wind do not touch the sky, and the sense-objects that time keeps creating from fire, water and earth do not touch consciousness. As the moon’s kalās wax and wane while the moon itself is unchanged, the body changes from birth to the cremation ground while the ātmā is unchanged. Bodies are born and perish every moment like the flames of a fire, and seem continuous like the current of a river. The speed of time cannot be perceived; by it the bodies of beings are born and die every moment, unseen because time is subtle. Time brings changes to flames, rivers and fruits, and brings to bodies age, childhood and health; people think a lamp-flame and a river are the same from moment to moment, and wrongly say the middle-aged man is the same as the youth. The brāhmaṇa of Avantī sings in his Bhikshu-gīta that if time is the cause of happiness and sorrow, the ātmā has nothing to do with it: the jīva is an aṃśa (portion) of the Paramātmā, and time can do nothing to it, as fire is not heated by its own flames nor snow made cold. And Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Uddhava that it is the Paramātmā, called the jīva through the sense of “I” and “mine”, that wanders in saṃsāra subject to Kāla.

Those who take refuge in Bhagavān Vishṇu are beyond the reach of Kāla. Kāla, Kapila‘s weapon, does not touch his bhaktas. Yama tells his dūtas that neither they nor Kāla can punish the devotees. Kāla itself is afraid of Śrī Hari, the devas say, and Narasiṃha‘s hand of abhaya takes the fear of Kāla from his devotees’ hearts. Indra confessed that the ignorant like him swagger as lords of the world and yet fear Kāla, while Śrī Kṛshṇa is free of that fear; seeing him, they give up their pride and walk the path of the good. Devakī took refuge in him who sets time going, the abode of fearlessness. The devas told Mucukunda that only Śrī Hari, who is beyond Time, can give moksha.

At the close of the tenth skandha Śuka gives the phalaśruti (the fruit of hearing): one who hears and sings the accounts of Śrī Kṛshṇa, and makes that attachment grow every moment, attains the svarūpa of the Parameśvara and is freed from the irresistible speed of Kāla; that is amṛtatva, deathlessness.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapters 2, 9; Skandha 3, Chapter 25; Skandha 6, Chapters 3, 9; Skandha 7, Chapter 9; Skandha 10, Chapters 3, 27, 51, 90; Skandha 11, Chapters 7, 22–23, 28

Per Skanda Purāṇa

The Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa of the Skanda Purāṇa tells of a remarkable meeting during the great war between the devas and the asura Tāraka (Tārakāsura). Bhagavān Vishṇu, in the form of a monkey, gives the victorious asura a teaching on kāla. Tāraka sees the divine wisdom even through the monkey’s form and answers it with deep understanding.

The meeting shows both Vishṇu’s understanding of kāla as the final ruler of all events, and Tāraka’s own recognition that he too is bound within it.

The Setting: Vishṇu in the Form of a Monkey

During the war with Tāraka, Vishṇu found that he could not defeat Tārakāsura, and chose to step back from direct fighting. This was a moment of rare restraint for the Vishṇu of the Purāṇas. He then took the form of a vānara (monkey) and went to Tāraka. This disguise was not trickery in the usual sense. It was a way of teaching: the form of a monkey lets a ṛshi or a divine being speak without the weight of a known, lofty identity. Tāraka, however, saw through the disguise.

The scene comes after Tāraka’s complete victory on the battlefield. The devas were in full retreat and the three worlds were under his rule. At this moment of Tāraka’s greatest triumph, Vishṇu, as a monkey, gave the teaching on kāla. It was a teaching aimed exactly at a being at the height of his apparent success.

The Teaching on Kāla

At the heart of Vishṇu‘s words to Tāraka were several linked insights:

1. Kāla is the final ruler. Time (kāla) moves through all beings, devas and asuras, creators and destroyers, with no exception. What looks like a being’s power, victory or invincibility is only a passing state within the larger movement of kāla. No vara (boon), however absolute it seems, stands outside kāla.

2. A vara is also a limit. Tāraka’s vara, that only a child seven years old could kill him, was not a promise that he could never be defeated. It was a particular form of the way kāla would one day reach him. The vara itself was part of kāla’s order. The very exactness of the condition (“a seven-year-old child”) showed that his death was already written, just not yet come.

3. Vishṇu serves the order of the universe. Vishṇu’s restraint in battle, his choice not to try to do more than kāla allowed him at that moment, was itself an act of dharma. To act within kāla’s order, and not against it, is the highest wisdom of dharma.

4. One’s own nature and kāla. Even a being who understands that everything passes, as Tāraka seems to, may still be bound by his own svabhāva (inborn nature) to act in certain ways. Understanding kāla does not by itself free one from being its instrument.

Tāraka’s Reply: Understanding Without Escape

What sets the Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa’s picture of Tāraka apart from an ordinary story of a villain is how he answered Vishṇu‘s teaching. He accepted it with real understanding. Tāraka saw the truth of what the monkey-Vishṇu had said: that his own victory would not last, that the seven-year-old child was yet to be born, and that kāla would in time bring his appointed end.

Yet Tāraka also saw his own limit. His nature as an asura (asura-svabhāva) bound him to act as an asura, even when his understanding went beyond that nature. This is one of the most finely drawn pictures of the mind of an asura in the Purāṇas: a being who understands the order of the universe, and yet cannot escape playing his part in it, as the other side of that order.

Kāla as a Thread Through the Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa

The theme of kāla runs all through the Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa:

• Lomaśa Ṛshi, who loses one hair at the end of each kalpa (day of Brahmā), lives out kāla in his own body as a personal countdown.
• King Indradyumna’s fame (kīrti), lost across the manvantaras (ages of the Manus), shows how kāla works on the memory of the world.
• The five apsarases (heavenly dancers) who waited a hundred years in the form of crocodiles show kāla shaped by a ṛshi’s curse.
• The yugādis and manvantarādis, the tithis (lunar days) on which yugas and manvantaras begin, show kāla as a field of concentrated holy power.

The exchange between Vishṇu and Tāraka brings this theme to its clearest statement: kāla is the final frame within which all events in the universe unfold, even wars of the devas and the victories of asuras.

Per Agni Purāṇa

The Agni Purāṇa speaks of Kāla from the first moment of creation to the last moment of every life.

Kāla made at creation

Svayambhū Brahmā, born in the golden egg, stayed in it for a year and then split it into two halves, making Dyuloka (the upper world) and Bhūloka (the earth-world), with ākāśa between them. He created the earth floating on the waters and the ten directions. There he made Kāla (time), Manas (mind), Vāk (speech), Kāma (desire), Krodha (anger) and Rati (delight). Prajāpati created these first, so that the creation still to come would be joined to ākāśa and the higher elements.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 17

Kāla, the form of Bhagavān Vishṇu

Agni Deva told Vasishṭha Maharshi the whole line of Pūru, down through the Kurus to the Pāṇḍavas, their sons by Draupadī, Abhimanyu and Parīkshit. Then he closed the account with a teaching on Kāla:

“All these are kings of the past. No one can tell the number of the kings who are to come. All of these have passed away, seized by Kāla. O Vasishṭha! Kāla is the form of Vishṇu. Therefore Vishṇu alone should be worshipped. Offer homa in Agni with Vishṇu alone as its object. He alone is the giver of everything.”

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 278

None is dear to Kāla

In his teaching on the rites for the dead, Pushkara tells why one should practise dharma without delay. Knowing that all in the world must die some day, one should practise dharma, for dharma alone goes with the jīva (the living being) wherever he goes. What is to be done tomorrow should be done today, and what is to be done at midday should be done in the forenoon, for death does not wait to see whether a man’s work is finished.

To Kāla (time, and death) no one is dear and no one hateful. When the span of life (āyurdāya) and the prārabdha-karma (the karma that has begun to bear fruit) are complete, death comes suddenly and takes the jīva away. One whose time has not come does not die even if struck by hundreds of arrows; one whose time has come dies even if touched with the tip of a blade of kuśa grass. Medicines and mantras cannot save one seized by death. Yet the jīva itself can never be killed and never dies; therefore grief over death should be given up.

Of the sannyāsī, Pushkara teaches that he should welcome neither death nor life. As a servant waits for his master’s command, he waits for his time (kāla).

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 159, 161

The three kinds of kāla

In the Yuddhajayārṇava, the teaching on victory in battle that Parameśvara gives to the Devī, Bhagavān Śiva names the forty-five letters of the five vargas in their order as bāla (the child), kumāra (the boy), yuvan (the youth), vṛddha (the old) and mṛtyu (death). He then teaches that kāla is of three kinds: ātma-pīḍaka (afflicting oneself), śoshaka (drying up) and udāsīna (indifferent).

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 125

The words for time

In the Agni Purāṇa‘s lexicon of words, dishṭa, anehas and kāla are given as the words that mean time.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 360

Per Bhavishya Purāṇa

The Bhavishya Purāṇa speaks of kāla in each of its parvas: Sumantu Muni to King Śatānīka in the Brahma Parva, Sūta to the brāhmaṇas in the Madhyama Parva, and Śrī Kṛshṇa to Yudhishṭhira in the Uttara Parva.

Kāla in creation

Sumantu Muni tells Śatānīka that the Vibhu (the all-pervading one), desiring to create, created kāla and its divisions, along with the grahas, the ṛtus, the rivers, oceans and mountains, kāma and krodha, sukha and vāk. Having created all beings, in this world of unceasing movement he turns back, suppressing kāla by means of kāla.

Nārada tells Sāmba that the thousand-headed Purusha, the Svayambhū, has three states. In Brahmā-hood he has sattva and rajas, and he creates. In Kāla-hood he has rajas and tamas, and he dissolves. As Kevala Purusha, the Purusha alone, he has sattva only and stays uninvolved. He himself creates as Brahmā, and as Kāla he brings to an end.

Telling of Vyoma, the weapon of Sūrya, Sumantu says that from Vyoma were born Kāla, Saṃvatsara, Agni and the Ṛtus.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapters 2, 77, 125

The measures of time

Sumantu gives the reckoning of time:

An ayana is six months. One human year of two ayanas is one day of the devatās: uttarāyaṇa is their day and dakshiṇāyana their night.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 2

Bhagavān Sūrya praised as Kāla

In the Brahma Parva, Sumantu retells what Brahmā told the ṛshis of the first appearance of Bhagavān Sūrya. In their stotra to him, Brahmā, Vishṇu and Maheśvara say, “You are Kāla-svarūpa,” the very form of time, and call him the maker of sṛshṭi, sthiti and laya. The devas and devarshis of the three worlds then praise him: “You are Kāla, spoken of in divisions such as nimesha and kāshṭhā. You are pralaya.”

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 123

Kāla and karma

Sūta teaches the brāhmaṇas that deva-karma and paitṛka-karma, the rites for the devas and the rites for the pitṛs, rest on kāla alone. Karma done at its fixed time gives its full fruit, and the fruit of acts done out of time is not obtained in the three times or the worlds.

Kāla is one and formless, and it is itself a form of Parameśvara. By difference of upādhis (limiting conditions) it is divided into many forms, long, short and the rest. Tithi, nakshatra, vāra and the junctures of night are all limbs of kāla, and as paksha, month and the like they come and go in other years too. They are the means of the world.

Nobody can do karma independently of time. Kāla alone is the main door of dharma or adharma. Forbidden and enjoined karmas are laid down for tithis and other divisions of time. One who keeps the enjoined karmas reaches svarga, and one who gives them up and does the forbidden goes to a low state.

Sūta then gives the rule for each part of the day:

• Vaidika kriyās are done in a tithi spreading through the forenoon.
• Ekoddishṭa śrāddha is done in a tithi spreading through midday.
• Pārvaṇa śrāddha is done in a tithi spreading through the afternoon.
• Vṛddhi śrāddha and the like are done in the morning.
• Brahmā gave the devatās the forenoon along with the tithis, and gave the pitṛs the afternoon.

Tithis are of three kinds: kharvā, darpā and hiṃsā. A tithi that is passed over is kharvā, tithi-vṛddhi is darpā and tithi-hāni is hiṃsā. Kharvā and darpā are taken with the following tithi, and hiṃsā with the preceding one. In śukla paksha the later is taken, and in kṛshṇa paksha the earlier.

The tithi on which Bhagavān Sūrya rises is proper for snāna, study and dāna. In kṛshṇa paksha, the tithi in which he sets is best for snāna, dāna and the like for the pitṛs. Dvitīyā joined with tṛtīyā and caturthī joined with pañcamī give puṇya, and the opposite joining lessens it.

One should not fast when shashṭhī is pierced by pañcamī, ashṭamī by saptamī, ekādaśī by daśamī, caturdaśī by trayodaśī, or amāvāsyā by caturdaśī. Otherwise son, wife and wealth decline, and one without son and wife has no adhikāra (right) in yajña.

At the eclipses of Kārttika and Māgha, snāna, japa, tapas, dāna, fasting and śrāddha give endless fruit. Snāna and dāna on the shashṭhī of Bhādrapada give endless puṇya, and a vrata on the shashṭhī of Māgha and Kārttika gives boundless fame in this world and the next. Whatever good or bad karma is done in these parvas becomes akshaya (undecaying).

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Madhyama Parva, Bhāga 2, Chapters 7–8

The witness of karma

Sūta names Kāla among the witnesses of karma. Gaṅgā, Sūrya, Candra, the sky, the earth, night, day, Soma, Yama, Kāla and the five mahābhūtas all witness auspicious and inauspicious karma. So the thinking person should turn from inauspicious acts and practise dharma.

सूर्यः सोमो यमः कालो महाभूतानि पञ्च च । एते शुभाशुभस्येह कर्मणो नव साक्षिणः ॥
sūryaḥ somo yamaḥ kālo mahābhūtāni pañca ca | ete śubhāśubhasyeha karmaṇo nava sākshiṇaḥ ||
Sūrya, Soma, Yama, Kāla and the five mahābhūtas: these are the nine witnesses here of good and evil karma.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Madhyama Parva, Bhāga 2, Chapters 17–18

In the Brahma Parva, Brahmā reports the words of a kiṅkara of Yama to the jīvas in the naraka called Andhatāmisra: the deluded man, even when fallen into naraka, cannot know Sūrya, Candra and the others who witness all karmas, nor Kāla, nor himself, nor good and evil.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 119

The impulse of Kāla: Harisvāmī

In the Pratisarga Parva, the Vaitāla asks King Vikramāditya who bears the pāpa of brahmahatyā in the account of Harisvāmī, the prince who became a sannyāsī. A serpent had spat poison into the pāyasa that a brāhmaṇa gave him, and he died of it. Vikramāditya answers that the fruit of one’s good and bad karma must surely be borne. The sannyāsī died by the karma of another birth and the impulse of Kāla. Eating the pāyasa was only the occasion, and no one is at fault.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 2, Chapters 1–23

None escapes Kāla

Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Yudhishṭhira how Bhagavān Vishṇu, in the form of a brāhmaṇa, taught King Tāladhvaja and his queen, who was Nārada in a woman’s form, when they wept for their perished line. Men with the power to dry the ocean, to grind the earth to powder and to lift mountains on their backs have gone into the terrible mouth of Kāla.

Go where one may, into battle, into the desert, on a mountain, into fire, into a cave or into the ocean, none can escape Kāla. What is to be will be. Though one go to Pātāla, go to Indraloka or climb Meru, and protect oneself however much with mantra, medicine or weapons, what is to happen does happen. Whatever good or ill is to come by the bhāgya of men surely comes, and even thousands of means cannot avert what is to be.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 3

Kāla and death

Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Yudhishṭhira that there are hundreds of places of death in the body. One is death itself, or Kāla. The others are the fearful ādhis (ills of the mind) and vyādhis (diseases) that come and go, each like half a death. These can be averted by japa, tapas, medicine and the like, but for Kāla-mṛtyu there is no remedy.

Disease, snakes, weapons, poison, tigers, lions and dasyus are all doors of death. But when death itself arrives, even Dhanvantari, the vaidya of the devatās, can do nothing. Medicine, tantra, mantra, tapas, dāna, rasāyana and yoga cannot protect one seized by Kāla.

For all beings there is no disease, no fear, no sorrow and no cause for dread equal to death. Death parts one from sons, wife, friends, kingdom, splendour and wealth, and deep-rooted enmities too end with it. Though a man cries “O mother! O father! O beloved!”, death seizes him as a snake seizes a frog.

Near Yamarāja sits Mṛtyudeva, black in colour, cruel as Kālāgni, and the fearful śaktis of Kāla and all diseases, in many forms, are seen sitting there.

In the account of the Acalā Saptamī, Indumatī of the Magadha country reflects at dawn on the impermanence of saṃsāra: this host of beings made by Brahmā is burned by the fire of Kāla, with the karma they have done as its fuel.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 4–6, 53

Kāla in the rites

• In the rite for giving up vṛntāka, Yamarāja and his attendants receive pūjā separately under seven names, in this order: Yama, Kāla, Nīla, Citragupta, Vaivasvata, Mṛtyu, Parameshṭhī. The homa of sesame and ghee uses the same names as mantras.
• In the Navagraha-śānti, Kāla is the adhidevatā of Rāhu, and his mantra is brahmajajñānam (Yajus 13.3). The limbs of Kāla, kalā, kāshṭhā and the rest, are among those called upon to consecrate the one for whom the rite is done.
• In the greatness of the gift of land, Citragupta, Mṛtyu, Kāla, Yama and the rest all honour the giver of land.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 112–113, 141, 164

Śrī Kṛshṇa’s parting word

As he closes his teaching and sets out for Dvārakā, Śrī Kṛshṇa says to Yudhishṭhira that everything is under Kāla, and so no kind of sorrow should be felt.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 207

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 2
• Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 3
• Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 8
• Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 5–6, 8–9, 11, 13; Skandha 2, Chapters 1–2, 5–6, 9–10; Skandha 3, Chapters 2, 4–6, 8–12, 20, 24–26, 29–30, 32; Skandha 4, Chapters 11–12, 21–22, 24, 27, 29; Skandha 5, Chapters 5, 8–9, 11–12, 14, 23–24; Skandha 6, Chapters 1, 3, 9, 12; Skandha 7, Chapters 7–9, 13; Skandha 8, Chapters 5–7, 11, 17, 20–21; Skandha 9, Chapter 10; Skandha 10, Chapters 1, 3, 8, 13, 27, 34, 51, 54, 56, 59–60, 70–71, 73, 82, 90; Skandha 11, Chapters 3, 5–7, 9–10, 15, 22–24, 28; Skandha 12, Chapters 2–3, 8–9, 12
• Skanda Purāṇa, Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 20–21
• Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 17, 125, 159, 161, 278, 360
• Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapters 2, 77, 119, 123, 125; Madhyama Parva, Bhāga 2, Chapters 7–8, 17–18; Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 2, Chapters 1–23; Uttara Parva, Chapters 3–6, 53, 112–113, 141, 164, 207