The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s3.t4.1

c7.s3.t4.1

WE must assume that, in the periodical re-absorption of the world in Brahman, the elements, in the same way as they have emerged from one another, are withdrawn again into one another in reverse order; for so experience teaches us, as, for example, in a staircase, coming down is the reverse of going up (p. 637, 5); therefore, as the vessel becomes clay again, and the ice, water (p. 637, 6), so also the dissolution of the elements takes place in such a manner that the less subtle goes back to that which is finer, the more remote effect returns everywhere into the nearer (p. 637, 9), for it is not right to assume that the effect continues when its cause is destroyed (p. 638, 4).