Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.2450

c8.2450

PRALAYA (Destruction). Pralaya is of four kinds. The first is nityapralaya. This is the destruction going on daily for all animate and inanimate objects born on earth. The second is Brāhmapralaya or naimittikapralaya. The third is Prākṛtapralaya. This is the great deluge made by prakṛti (nature) at the end of a thousand Caturyugas (four yugas). The fourth is ātyantikapralaya. This is the union of the soul with the Supreme Being due to Jñāna. Of the above the Brāhmapralaya, or naimittikapralaya happens at the end of a Kalpa or a day of Brahmā or a thousand yugas. The nature of this pralaya is as follows : At the end of a thousand yugas the world will look famished. Then there will be excessive drought for a hundred years together and everything in this world would be destroyed. Then Mahā-viṣṇu, lord of everything in this universe, would present himself in the seven big rays of the Sun and drink to emptiness all the waters of all the three worlds, earth, ocean and pātāla. Then by the divine power of Mahāviṣṇu the seven rays of the Sun which had grown fat by drinking this water would become seven separate Suns. These Suns would burn all the three worlds including Pātāla. Then the earth would look like the back of a tortoise (Kūrmapṛṣṭha). At that time Rudra, equal in brilliance to Kālāgni, would from beneath burn the pātāla sending breaths from Ādiśeṣa. After pātāla Kālāgnirudra would burn the