KALA (TIME)

 Kāla (Time), in the Sanatana Dharma (eternal order or righteousness), is perceived as eternal, cyclical, degenerative as well as regenerative, and is closely related to the concept of atman (nner self, or inner spirit).

Kāla (Time) is a powerful force of the Supreme Being, so says the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, that creates, sustains, destroys, and recreates everything in this material world.

kālo ’smi loka-kṣhaya-kṛit pravṛiddho

lokān samāhartum iha pravṛittaḥ

ṛite ’pi tvāṁ na bhaviṣhyanti sarve

ye ’vasthitāḥ pratyanīkeṣhu yodhāḥ

Sri Krishna says I am mighty kāla (Time), the source of destruction that comes forth to annihilate the worlds. Even without your participation, the warriors arrayed in the opposing army shall cease to exist.

In response to Arjun’s question regarding who he is, Sri Krishna reveals his nature as all-powerful Time, the destroyer of the universe. The word kāla is derived from kalayati, which is synonymous with gaṇayati, meaning "to take count of." All events in nature get buried in time. Time counts and controls the lifespan of all beings.

As Robert Oppenheimer, the famous nuclear physicist, witnessed the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945, Sri Krishna’s full depiction in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita ran through him by way of his exclamation: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. It is, perhaps, the most well-known line from the Bhagavad Gita.

1. Outline

1.1. Western Philosophy

The Western notion of time is linear, limited, and progressive. Time is a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

The famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle, says time is continuous and "there is no time apart from change." In this context, he advances a relational theory of time. He views that change and time are intimately related, with time in terms of change and not vice versa. Time is not change itself," because a change "may be faster or slower, but not time." Because "time is the measure of change" of things. He says that the before and after in time depend on the before and after in change, which in turn depends on the before and after in place.

René Descartes on "What is time?" lays emphasis on the infinite (or indefinite) extension of space is importantly different from the infinity of time. He claims that a material body has the property of spatial extension but no inherent capacity for temporal endurance, and that God, by his continual action, sustains (or recreates) the body at each successive instant. Time is a kind of sustenance or recreation. Descartes concedes that we always imagine an earlier time in which God might have created the world if he had wanted, but insists that this imaginary earlier existence of the world is not connected to its actual duration in the way that the indefinite extension of space is connected to the actual extension of the world.

Space is an order of coexisting phenomena, just as time is an order of successive phenomena, asserts Gottfried Leibniz, a relationist like Aristotle. He says time is a series of moments, and each moment is a set of co-existing events in a network of relations between earlier and later. Leibniz views space as not a thing but a relationship among other things.

Time is absolute and independent of events so claims Isaac Newton.  According to Newton, absolute time and space respectively are independent aspects of objective reality. Newton views that absolute time exists independently of any perceiver and progresses at a consistent pace throughout the universe, and could only be understood mathematically. According to Newton, humans are only capable of perceiving relative time, which is a measurement of perceivable objects in motion (like the Moon or Sun). From these movements, we infer the passage of time.

The problem of time is a conceptual conflict between general relativity and quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics regards the flow of time as universal and absolute,

General relativity, on the other regards the flow of time as malleable and relative.

Though classically spacetime appears to be an absolute background, general relativity reveals that spacetime is actually dynamical; gravity is a manifestation of spacetime geometry. Matter reacts with spacetime: Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.

Hermann Minkowski argued that the proper way to understand relativity theory is to say time is really a designated, non-spatial dimension of spacetime  and time has no existence independent of space. Einstein agreed. The most philosophically interesting feature of the relationship between time and space, according to relativity theory, is that the more you have of one the less you have of the other.

A broadly held twenty-first century consensus expresses by Tim Maudlin that space and time are theoretical entities. There cannot be any direct observation of them. The space-time structure appears in the framing of the fundamental laws, and the nature of that structure is, in a broad sense of the term, geometrical.

1.2. Sanatana Dharma

Kāla (Time) is perceived as eternal, cyclical, degenerative, and regenerative and is closely related to the concept of atman (soul). It engulfs within its fold all creations of having birth and death. In the Srimad Bhagavata Purana, Kāla (Time) is the imperceptible, unchanging, and inevitable law of cyclic change that spread its tentacle in all the creations. It says that all things created are evanescent, illusory, and ephemeral and subject to its laws of creation, sustenance, and destruction. In the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna clearly says:

ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino ’rjuna

mām upetya tu kaunteya punar janma na vidyate

In all the worlds of this material creation, up to the highest abode of Brahma, you will be subject to rebirth. But on attaining My Abode, there is no further rebirth.

As per the Vedic scriptures, there are fourteen worlds in our universe. Seven planes of existence beginning with earth and higher —bhūḥ, bhuvaḥ, swaḥ, mahaḥ, janaḥ, tapaḥ, satyaḥ. The higher planes are the celestial abodes called the Swarga. The remaining seven planes that are lower than earth are the hellish abodes called narak. These are —tal, atal, vital, sutal, talātal, rasātal, pātāl.

Kāla (Time) encompasses all the worlds of this material creation, up to the highest abode of Brahma, where birth and rebirth exist. Beyond all these is the abode of the Supreme Being, which is beyond the cycle of time as there is no birth or rebirth.

In the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna observes:

 prakṛitiṁ puruṣhaṁ chaiva viddhy and ubhāv api

vikārānśh cha guṇānśh chaiva viddhi prakṛiti-sambhavān

Know that prakṛiti (material nature) and puruṣh (the individual souls) are both beginningless. Know also that all transformations of the body and the three modes of nature are produced by material energy. Sri Krishna explains that the puruṣh (soul) is responsible for the experience of pleasure and pain.

puruṣhaḥ prakṛiti-stho hi bhuṅkte prakṛiti-jān guṇān

kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo ’sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu

Sri Krishna says: When the puruṣh (individual soul) seated in prakṛiti (the material energy) desires to enjoy the three guṇas, attachment to them becomes the cause of its birth in the superior and inferior wombs.

He further explains how this is so. Considering the body to be the self, the soul energises it into activity that is directed at enjoying bodily pleasures. Since the body is made of Maya, it seeks to enjoy the material energy that is made of the three modes (guṇas)—mode of goodness, mode of passion, and mode of ignorance.

Due to the ego, the soul identifies itself as the doer and the enjoyer of the body. The body, mind, and intellect perform all the activities, but the soul is held responsible for them. The senses, mind, and intellect are energised by the soul, and they work under its dominion. Hence, the soul accumulates the karmas for all activities performed by the body. This stockpile of karmas, accumulated from innumerable past lives, causes its repeated birth in superior and inferior wombs.

Everything in the material realm is set up by time. Time as an internal potency that manages everything, not the other way around.

The Vedic cosmological system has measurements of time that are perplexing and expansive, from the infinitesimal to the minute sub-atomic level to infinity. Sri Krishna observes in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita:

 sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ

rātriṁ yuga-sahasrāntāṁ te ’ho-rātra-vido janāḥ

 avyaktād vyaktayaḥ sarvāḥ prabhavantyahar-āgame

rātryāgame pralīyante tatraivāvyakta-sanjñake

bhūta-grāmaḥ sa evāyaṁ bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate

rātryāgame ’vaśhaḥ pārtha prabhavatyahar-āgame

One day of Brahma (kalp) lasts a thousand cycles of the four ages (mahā yug), and his night also extends for the same span of time. The wise who know this understand the reality about day and night.

At the advent of Brahma’s day, all living beings emanate from the unmanifest source.  And at the fall of his night, all embodied beings again merge into their unmanifest source.

The cosmic play of the various planes of existence in the universe is astounding. The fourteen worlds and their planetary systems undergo repeated cycles of sṛiṣhṭi, sthiti, and pralaya (creation, preservation, and dissolution). All planetary systems up to the Mahar Lok are destroyed at the end of a kalp, which is Brahma’s day of 4.32 billion years. This partial dissolution is called naimittik pralaya. When Shukdev Paramhans narrated the Shrimad Bhagavatam to Parikshit, he stated that Brahma creates these worlds similar to a child playing with his toys. A child builds structures with his toys during the day and pulls them apart before going to bed at night. Similarly, when Brahma wakes up, he creates the planetary systems and their life forms and dissolves them before going to sleep.

The entire universe dissolves at the end of Brahma’s life of 100 years (311.04 trillion earth years). The whole material creation winds up. The pañch-mahābhūta merge into the pañch-tanmātrās, the pañch-tanmātrās merge into ahankār, ahankār merges into mahān, and mahān merges into prakṛiti. Prakṛiti is the subtle form of Maya, the material energy of God. This great dissolution is called prākṛit pralaya, or mahāpralaya.

When it is time for the next cycle of creation, the Supreme Being through prakṛiti unfolds the creation process anew. From prakṛiti, mahān is created, from mahān,ahankār; then from ahankār, pañch-tanmātrās are created; from pañch-tanmātrās, pañch-mahābhūta get created. And by this process, unlimited universes are created again.

Multitudes of beings repeatedly take birth with the advent of Brahma’s day and are reabsorbed on the arrival of the cosmic night, to manifest again automatically on the advent of the next cosmic day.

The Vedas state that one year on earth equals one day and night of Indra and other celestial gods. Thus, one year of the celestial gods, consisting of 12 x 30 days, equals 360 years on the earth plane. The calculation goes much further: 12,000 years of the celestial gods make one mahā yug (cycle of four yugas) on the earth plane, that is, 4.32 million years. Following is the Vedic calculation of time periods, or yugas, on the earth plane:

Kali Yug: 432,000 years

Dwāpar Yug: 864,000 years

Tretā Yug: 1,296,000 years

Satya Yug: 1,728,000 years

Mahā Yug: 4,320,000 years (Adding the four yugas)

Kalp: 4,320,000,000 years (1000 Mahā Yug = 1 day of Brahma)

One thousand mahā yug make one day of Brahma, called a kalp, and then there is Brahma’s night of equal duration. Kalp is the largest unit of time in the world; it equals 4.32 billion years. In this verse, Sri Krishna states that only those who understand this knowledge truly know what day and night are.

According to Vedas, the duration of the universe equals Brahma’s lifespan, of 100 years. Brahma’s one day and one night put together make 8.64 billion earth years, and 36,000 such days of his lifespan would make 311 trillion 40 billion years. So, that will be one life cycle of our universe. Now the question arises: when Brahma is a creator, why is he also subject to birth and death?

Brahma is also a soul who has reached tremendously elevated consciousness. Thus, God has given him the position of Brahma, to discharge the duties as a creator on God’s behalf. But like all other living creatures, Brahma is also subject to the cycle of life and death. However, at the end of his tenure, he is liberated and goes to the Abode of God. Sometimes, at the creation of the world, when God does not find any eligible souls for the position of Brahma, God Himself becomes Brahma.

The same is also explained in the Srimad Bhagavatam (3.11.19) as:

catvāri trīṇi dve caikaṁ

kṛtādiṣu yathā-kramam

saṅkhyātāni sahasrāṇi

dvi-guṇāni śatāni ca

The duration of the Satya millennium equals 4,800 years of the demigods; the duration of the Tretā millennium equals 3,600 years of the demigods; the duration of the Dvāpara millennium equals 2,400 years; and that of the Kali millennium is 1,200 years of the demigods.

The transitional periods before and after every millennium, which are a few hundred years as aforementioned, are known as yuga-sandhyās, or the conjunctions of two millenniums.

The Shrimad Bhagavad Gita says:

oṁ ityekākṣharaṁ brahma vyāharan mām anusmaran

yaḥ prayāti tyajan dehaṁ sa yāti paramāṁ gatim

One who departs from the body while remembering Me, the Supreme Being, and chanting the syllable Om will attain the supreme goal.

The Vedic scriptures state that at the beginning of creation, God first created sound. With sound, He created space and then continued with the rest of the creation process.  That primordial sound was the sacred syllable OM  without any attributes or virtues. OM is also called Pranav, the sound manifestation of the Brahman, the Supreme Being.

The sound Om pervades the entire creation; it is imperishable and infinite like God Himself. Hence, it is also called anāhat nād. In the Vedic tradition, it is conferred as the Mahā vākya, or the Great Sound Vibration of the Vedas, and is often attached to the beginning of the Vedic mantras as bīja (seed or core) mantra.

The Srimad Bhagavatam describes clearly the four Yugas, the life spans of Brahmā (the greatest of all living creatures within the universe), Manu (the progenitor and ruler of the human race), gods, Pitrs (forefathers), and others.

dharmaś catuṣ-pān manujān

kṛte samanuvartate

sa evānyeṣv adharmeṇa

vyeti pādena vardhatā

In the Satya millennium, complete execution of religious principles prevailed. Gradually, the principles of religion decreased by one part in each of the subsequent millenniums. In other words, at present, there is one part religion and three parts irreligion. Therefore, people in this age are not very happy.

niśāvasāna ārabdho

loka-kalpo’nuvartate
yāvad dinaṁ bhagavato

manūn bhuñjaṁś catur-daśa

After the end of Brahmā’s night, the creation of the three worlds begins again in the daytime of Brahmā, and they continue to exist through the life durations of fourteen consecutive Manus, or fathers of mankind.

Outside of the three planetary systems of Svarga (Heaven),  Martya (Earth), and Pātāla (Nether world), the four yugas multiplied by one thousand comprise one day on the planet of Brahmā. A similar period comprises the night of Brahmā, in which the creator of the universe goes to sleep.

svaṁ svaṁ kālaṁ manur bhuṅkte

sādhikāṁ hy eka-saptatim

Each and every Manu enjoys a life of a little more than seventy-one sets of four millenniums.

The duration of the life of a Manu comprises seventy-one sets of four millennia, as described in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. The duration of the life of one Manu is about 852,000 years in the calculation of the demigods, or, in the calculation of human beings, 306,720,000 years.

There are fourteen Manus in one day of Brahmā, and each of them has different descendants.

In the creation, during Brahmā’s day, the three planetary systems  of Svarga (Heaven),  Martya (Earth), and Pātāla (Nether world) revolve, and the inhabitants, including the lower animals, humans, demigods, and Pitās, appear and disappear in terms of their fruitive activities.

tamo-mātrām upādāya

pratisaṁruddha-vikramaḥ
kālenānugatāśeṣa
āste tūṣṇīṁ dinātyayte

At the end of the day, under the insignificant portion of the mode of darkness, the powerful manifestation of the universe merges in the darkness of night. Under the influence of eternal time, the innumerable living entities remain merged in that dissolution, and everything is silent.

This is an explanation of the night of Brahmā, which is the effect of the influence of time in touch with an insignificant portion of the modes of material nature in darkness. The dissolution of the three worlds is effected by the incarnation of darkness, Rudra, represented by the fire of eternal time that blazes over the three worlds. These three worlds are known as Bhūḥ, Bhuvaḥ and Svaḥ (Pātāla, Martya, and Svarga). The innumerable living entities merge into that dissolution, which appears to be the dropping of the curtain on the scene of the Supreme Lord’s energy, and so everything becomes silent.

2. Remarks

In the Sanatana Dharma, Kāla (Time) is observed as eternal,cyclical, degenerative, as well as regenerative. It is well explained in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita:

sarva-bhūtāni kaunteya prakṛitiṁ yānti māmikām

kalpa-kṣhaye punas tāni kalpādau visṛijāmyaham

prakṛitiṁ svām avaṣhṭabhya visṛijāmi punaḥ punaḥ

bhūta-grāmam imaṁ kṛitsnam avaśhaṁ prakṛiter vaśhāt

Sri Krishna says that at the end of one kalp, all living beings merge into My primordial material energy. At the beginning of the next creation, I manifest them again. Presiding over My material energy, I generate these myriad forms again and again, in accordance with the force of their natures.

Thus the process of the exhaustion of the duration of life exists for every one of the living beings, including Lord Brahmā. One’s life endures for only one hundred years, in terms of the times on the different planets.

Every living being lives for one hundred years in terms of the times on different planets for different entities. These one hundred years of life are not equal in every case. The longest duration of one hundred years belongs to Brahmā, but although the life of Brahmā (the greatest of all living creatures within the universe) is very long, it expires in the course of time. Brahmā is also afraid of his death, and thus he performs devotional service to the Lord just to release himself from the clutches of illusory energy.

-Asutosh Satpathy