Kalpa (kalpa)

A kalpa is a day of Brahma, a span of a thousand cycles of the four yugas, at the end of which the worlds dissolve and are made again. The Mahabharata uses it to put its own catastrophe in perspective: Markandeya, who survives the dissolution and floats on the cosmic waters, watches whole creations end and restart. The story of Indra and the procession of ants makes the same point more cruelly, showing a proud god that every ant in the line was once an Indra.