བསྐལ་ཆེན་
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
A great kalpa (Skt. mahākalpa; Tib. བསྐལ་ཆེན་, Wyl. bskal chen) is the period of time during which the universe passes through the four periods (or medium kalpas) of
- formation (Tib. ཆགས་པའི་བསྐལ་པ་, Wyl. chags pa'i bskal pa),
- duration (Tib. གནས་པའི་བསྐལ་པ་, Wyl. gnas pa'i bskal pa),
- destruction (Tib. འཇིག་པའི་བསྐལ་པ་, Wyl. 'jig pa'i bskal pa) and
- voidness (Tib. སྟོང་པའི་བསྐལ་པ་, Wyl. stong pa'i bskal pa).
bskal chen - mahakalpa [according to the Abhidharmakosha tradition 80 small kalpas, acc to abhidharma-samuccaya = four {bskal chung} in human years dung phyur drug dang bye ba bdun sa ya gcig ‘bum dgu khri gnyis = 671,920,000, or another tradition says ‘khrug phrag bdun [IW]
bskal chen - great aeon/kalpa [acc to Abhidharma-kosha = 80 {bskal chung} acc to abhidharma-samuccaya = four {bskal chung} see {bskal pa chen po} eighty intermediate aeons {bar bskal} and is divided into; {chags pa’i bskal pa nyi shu} = twenty aeons of the formation of the universe {gnas pa’i bskal pa nyi shu} = twenty aeons of its persistence {‘jigs pa’i bskal pa nyi shu} = twenty aeons of its dissolution, {stong pa’i bskal pa nyi shu} = twenty aeons of vacuity)
bskal chen - great aeon. [acc. to Abhidharma-Kosha 80 bskal chung. Acc. to Abhidharma-Samucchaya 4 bskal chung.
See {bskal pa chen po}; great aeon. [acc. to Abhidharma-Kosha 80 {bskal chung}. Acc. to Abhidharma-Samucchaya 4 {bskal chung}.)
See {bskal pa chen po}. a great aeon consists of eight intermediate aeons ( see {bar bskal}.) and is divided into,
1) {chags pa’i bskal pa nyi shu}. twenty aeons of the formation of the universe.
2) {gnas pa’i bskal pa nyi shu}. twenty aeons of its persistence.
3) {‘jigs pa’i bskal pa nyi shu}. twenty aeons of its dissolution.
4) {stong pa’i bskal pa nyi shu}. twenty aeons of vacuity [RY]