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kalpa

American  
[kuhl-puh] / ˈkʌl pə /

noun

Hinduism.
  1. a thousand cycles of Maha Yugas.


kalpa British  
/ ˈkælpə /

noun

  1. (in Hindu cosmology) a period in which the universe experiences a cycle of creation and destruction

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of kalpa

Borrowed into English from Sanskrit around 1785–95


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Even as at the end of the great kalpa, those holding the law who die, when the rolling sound of the mysterious thunder-cloud severs the forests, upon these there shall fall the rain of immortality.

From Sacred Books of the East by Various

Transfer this experience from man to God; consider it not as abstract and apparent, but as concrete and real, and you have the Hindu doctrine of the kalpa.

From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by William Rounseville Alger

And 'All beings at the end of a kalpa return into my Nature, and again, at the beginning of a kalpa, do I send them forth.

From The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja — Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 by George Thibaut

Matter is described as Mâyâ and is potentially contained in the Lord who manifests it in the creative process which begins each kalpa.

From Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2 by Sir Charles Eliot

In the Puranas creation is a process renewed after each kalpa, or vast mundane period.

From Myth, Ritual and Religion — Volume 1 by Andrew Lang

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