In Vedism, Kalki (Devanagari: कल्कि; also rendered by some as Kalki and Kalaki) is the tenth and final Maha Avatar (great incarnation) of Vishnu who will bring to an end the present age of darkness and destruction known as Kali Yuga. He will establish a new era based on truth, righteousness, humanism and goodness, called Satya Yuga. The name Kalki is often a metaphor for eternity or time. The origins of the name probably lie in the Sanskrit word "kalka" which refers to mud, dirt, filth, or foulness and hence denotes the "destroyer of foulness," "destroyer of confusion," "destroyer of darkness," or "annihilator of ignorance." Other similar and divergent interpretations based on varying etymological derivations from Sanskrit - including one simply meaning "White Horse" - have been made.

In the Buddhist Kalachakra tradition, some 25 rulers of the legendary Shambhala Kingdom have the title of Kalki, Kulika or Kalki-king.

Vedic traditions permit numerous interpretations of what avatars are and to what purpose they act. Avatara means "descent" and indicates a descent of the divine awareness into manifestations of the mundane form. The Garuda Purana lists ten avatars, with Kalki being the tenth. The Bhagavata Purana initially lists twenty-two avatars, but mentions an additional three for a total of twenty-five avatars. He is presented as the twenty-second avatar in this list.

Kalki Koechlin Kashyup (Kalki kōcalina kāśayūpī) (born 9 January 1983) is an Indian film actress of French descent who debuted in Anurag Kashyap's critically acclaimed Hindi film Dev.D. She also works as a screenwriter. She played the character of Chandramukhi in Dev.D, which is a modern take on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali novella Devdas and eventually won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress for it (2009). Kalki next featured in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara which was commercially and critically successful, she was nominated in the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress category (2011).

Her father Joel Koechlin hitchhiked to India from France, 38 years ago and met her mother Francoise Armandie at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Auroville nearPondicherry. Her parents are devotees of Sri Aurobindo. Eventually they settled in moved to Kallatty, a village near Ooty, where he established a business of a designing hang-gliders and microlight aircrafts, and Kalki was born here Her ancestor Maurice Koechlin, was a French structural engineer, designed the Eiffel Tower .

Anurag Singh Kashyap (born 10 September 1972) is an Indian film director and screenwriter. As a filmmaker, he is known for Black Friday (2004), a controversial and award-winning Hindi film about the 1993 Bombay bombings, followed by No Smoking (2007), Dev D (2009) and Gulaal (2009). As a screenwriter, he wrote the scripts for the Filmfare Award-winning Satya (1998) and the Academy Award-nominated Canadian film Water (2005).

In 1999, Kashyap won the Best Screenplay award for Satya at the Star Screen Awards. The next year, his short film Last Train to Mahakali won the Special Jury Award at the same awards. His feature film debut Black Friday won the Grand Jury Prize at the 3rd Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (2005), and was a nominee for the "Golden Leopard" (Best Film) at the 57th Locarno International Film Festival (2004). In 2010, he announced his association with Tumbhi where he and his team will make six short films for Tumbhi and start his blog with them, as well. He was listed on the The DNA power list: Top 50 influentials, a list of 50 most influential Indians in 2011.