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China / Tibet: A Kalachakra thangka from Sera, one of the 'great three' Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet, located 2km north of Lhasa

Kalachakra (Sanskrit: Kālacakra) is a Sanskrit term used in Tantric Buddhism that literally means 'time-wheel' or 'time-cycles'.

The Kalachakra tradition revolves around the concept of time (kāla) and cycles (chakra): from the cycles of the planets, to the cycles of human breathing, it teaches the practice of working with the most subtle energies within one's body on the path to enlightenment.

The Kalachakra deity represents a Buddha and thus omniscience. Since Kalachakra is time and everything is under the influence of time, Kalachakra knows all. Whereas Kalachakri or Kalichakra, his spiritual consort and complement, is aware of everything that is timeless, untimebound or out of the realm of time. In Yab-yum, they are temporality and atemporality conjoined. Similarly, the wheel is without beginning or end.