[Skr. kalpa.] In Hindu cosmology: A great age of the world (see quot. 1834); a day of Brahma; a thousand yugas.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., II. xliv. 287. The Hindoos are taught to believe that at the end of every kalpa, or creation, all things are absorbed in the Deity.
1834. Nat. Philos., III. Hist. Astron. App. 117. The Bramins at this time chose to select a period of 4,320,000,000 years, which they called a Kalpa.
1899. A. B. Bruce, Moral Order World, i. 20. A great Kalpa is the period beginning with the origin of a world and extending beyond its dissolution to the commencement of a new succeeding world.
