Kalpa (aeon)

Kalpa ( Sanskrit: कल्प, kalpa, world-period, aeon, Pali: kappa) denotes a very long period of time, which is the longest unit of time in the cyclic cosmology of Hinduism and Buddhism. A Kalpa is the time it takes for the universe to arise to pass and is in the ground of the cosmic ocean, the formlessness and lack of differentiation to return

Hinduism

In the Puranas kalpas be related to the gods Vishnu and Brahma. After each Kalpa Vishnu sleeps on his bed, which is prepared from the serpent Shesha. From the creation there is nothing left except the ocean, not even the gods exist, all the worlds are darkened. From Vishnu joy of divine play created from Vishnu's navel a lotus appears in the Brahma. Vishnu Brahma explains that he is the origin and resolution of all creation. Brahma also declared he is a creator. Vishnu enters Brahma's belly and sees all the worlds. Then Brahma Vishnu enters stomach, see there but nothing since Vishnu has closed all the doors.

Kalpa is according to the Indian doctrine of the universe is also a day of Brahma, which covers a period of 4,320,000 years and whose life takes a hundred Brahma - years. The most famous cosmological era of Hinduism are the Yugas. A Kalpa lasts, although there are different calculations thousand world age ( Mahayugas ), last 12 000 years and gods 4,320,000 human years, spread over the four Yugas.

A day of Brahma and one night of Brahma leave a cosmos of creation are created before the extinction of the cosmos, at the end of which is the dissolution of the world, the then undeveloped rest until a new creation emerges.

After 100 Brahma years (40 billion years) the world is finally under and dissolves into the subtle primordial matter, to by divine power or by itself, a new cycle begins.

Next called Kalpa is one of the so-called Tools of the Veda, the Vedangas. It is Hindu ritual literature that arose from the need to compress the rules for the sacrificial rituals in a shorter and more concise form, to be more suitable for the practical concerns of the priests ( Brahmins ).

Buddhism

In Buddhism Kalpa an aeon mythological era.

A Kalpa is divided into the following four periods:

To illustrate the duration of such period of time, the following parable from the Samyutta Nikaya is used often.

" When there, O monk, a boulder befände from a single mass, a mile long, a mile wide, a mile high, unbroken, unsplit, unzerklüftet, and it wants every hundred years a man come and the same with a silk handkerchief once verily, rub, it would o monk who rather be removed from a single mass of existing rock and disappear as a world. This, O monks, is the duration of a world. Such worlds now, O monks, many dwindled, many hundreds, many thousands, many hundreds of thousands. But how is that possible? Inconceivable, O monk, this round is existence ( samsara ), unrecognizable the beginning of beings, who lost in delusion and captivated by the desire wander through the births, rush through the births "