Akshara-kala
A primary time unit used to count the length of a tala.
An akshara-kala is a primary count in a tala. In the common eight-count Adi cycle, each count is one akshara-kala.
Example
In one-fold Kala and chatusra Gati, each of Adi tala's eight counts contains four inner pulses: 8 × 4 = 32. The eight primary counts and 32 subdivisions describe different levels of the same cycle.