also: たいごう
mahakalpa; great eon
Buddhist term for an immense cosmic period, often described as the time it takes for a celestial being to wear away a huge rock with a delicate cloth once every hundred years. Used in sutras and doctrinal texts.
See also: 劫
In Buddhist scriptures, a unit of time called a mahakalpa, an inconceivably long period, is expounded.
Alternate reading たいごう is less common but attested in some Buddhist contexts.
From Middle Chinese 大劫 (dɑiᴴ kɨɐp̚), itself a translation of Sanskrit mahākalpa. The term entered Japanese through Buddhist texts.