page_title: Kaal
section_title: As a deity
hierarchical_section_title: Kaal / As a deity
caption_attribution_description: English: Kala head, Candi Jabung, Paiton, Probolinggo, East Java, 2017-09-14
context_page_description: Kāla is a word used in Sanskrit to mean "time". It is also the name of a deity, in which sense it is not always distinguishable from kāla, meaning "black". It is often used as one of the various names or forms of Yama.
context_section_description: As applied to gods and goddesses in works such as the Devī Māhātmya and the Skanda Purāṇa, kāla 1 and kāla 2 are not readily distinguishable. Thus Wendy Doniger, translating a conversation between Śiva and Pārvatī from the Skanda Purāṇa, says Mahākāla may mean " 'the Great Death' ... or 'the Great Black One' ". And Swāmī Jagadīśvarānanda, a Hindu translator of the Devī Māhātmya, renders the feminine compound kāla-rātri (where rātri means "night") as "dark night of periodic dissolution".
  As Time personified, destroying all things, Kala is a god of death sometimes identified with Yama.
caption: Head of Kala carved on top of Jabung temple niche, East Java, Indonesia.
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