Chapter CCXXXIII - Naimittika Pralaya, etc.

Suta said:—After the expiry of a thousand of such four Yugas, occurs the causal or periodical (Naimittika) dissolution of the universe. At the close of each Kalpa will follow a rainless period of a hundred years, during which the seven suns will rise in the sky, which, by absorbing all water, will burn down the three regions with a dreadful conflagration of fire. Inmates of the regions of Bhu, Bhuba (Bhuva?), Sva and Maha, will fly to the region of Jana, and the god Vishnu, manifest in the shape of Rudra, shall consume the Nether regions (Patalas. Clouds of all shades of colour will originate from the mouth of this Rudra-form Vishnu, which will incessantly pour down torrents of rain, for a hundred years. From the mouth of Vishnu winds, abnormally augmented and enraged, shall blow in storms for a hundred years. On the annihilation of all creatures, both mobile and immobile, the god Vishnu, assuming the shape of Brahma, shall lie down on the one universal ocean of undivided waters. Tims sleeping for another hundred years, the god Vishnu will again create the universe.

Now hear me, O Shaunaka, describe the Natural dissolution of the universe (Annihilation of Nature.) At the expiry of the full one hundred years of Brahma, the God Hari, absorbed in Yoga, shall get the whole universe, with its progenitor Brahma, merged in his own Self. Those, who might have attained to the region of Brahma at the time, shall reach the final goal of existence. Then will follow a period of draught, with the fierce sun of dissolution consuming everything with its deadly heat from the heaven of a dissolving universe. After that, primordeal clouds will pour down heavy torrents of rain upon the universe, which, bring filled with water in its inride, will finally burst out. Thus at the completion of the life-duration of Brahma, the earth-matter will be resolved into water; the Water, into heat; heat, into air; air, into ether; the ether, into essential matter (Bhutadi) the essential matter, into the principle of intellection; the principle of intellection, into Prakriti (Nature); and Nature, into Purusha (the eternal subjectivity). Thus for a hundred years of his own, the God Hari will repose in sleep, and after that, he will create a fresh universe in the order of evolution, commencing from Nature to the principle of intellection, from the principle of intellection to ether, from ether to air, from air to heat, from heat to water, and from water to earth.