SECTION III.
Parāçara said The dissolution of existing beings is of three kinds, incidental, elemental and absolute. The incidental is that which relates to Brahmā and takes place at the end of a Kalpa: the elemental is that which occurs after two Parārdhas; the absolute is final liberation from existence.
Maitreya said:—"Tell me, O excellent preceptor, what is the enumeration of a Parārdha, the expiration of two of which is the period of elemental dissolution".
Parāçara said:—Parardha, O Maitreya, is that number which takes place in the eighteenth place of figures enumerated according to the rule of decimal notation. At the end of twice that period elemental dissolution takes place when all the discrete products of nature are withdrawn into Their indiscrete source. The shortest period of time is Mātrā which is equal to the twinkling of the human eye; fifteen Mātrā make a Kāshthā; thirty Kāshthās one Kalā: fifteen Kalās one Nādhikā. A Nādhikā is determined by a measure of water with a vessel made of twelve Palas and a half of copper in the bottom of which there is to be a hole made with a tube of gold of the weight of four Māshas and four inches long. According to the Māgadha measure the vessel should hold a Prastha (or sixteen Palas) of water. Two of these Nādis make one Muhurta; thirty of which make one day and night. Thirty such periods constitute a month; twelve months make a year, or a day and night of the celestials; and three hundred and sixty such days, constitute a year of the celestials. An aggregate of four ages consists of twelve thousand divine years; and a thousand periods of four ages complete a day of Brahmā. That period is also termed a Kalpa during which fourteen Munis preside and at the end of it takes place the incidental or Brahmā dissolution. The nature of this dissolution is very dreadful; hear, I shall describe this as well as that which takes place as the elemental dissolution.
At the end of a thousand period of four ages the earth is for the most part exhausted. A total dearth takes place which lasts for a hundred years; and on account of the failure of food all beings become languid and exanimate and at last entirely die. The eternal Vishnu then takes the character of Rudra the destroyer and comes down to reunite all his creatures with himself. He enters into the seven rays of the sun, drinks up all the waters of the earth and causes all moisture, whatever in living bodies or in the soil to evaporate, thus drying up the whole earth. Thus fed with his intervention with profuse moisture, the seven solar rays dilate to seven suns, whose radiance glows above, below and on every side and sets the three worlds and Pātāla on fire. The three worlds, consumed by these suns, become rugged and deformed all over their mountains, rivers and seas; and the earth bare of verdure, and destitute of moisture alone remains resembling in appearance the back of a tortoise. Hari, the destroyer of all things, in the form of Rudra, who is the flame of time, becomes the scorching breath of the serpent Sesha and thereby reduces Pātāla to ashes. The great fire, when it has reduced all the divisions of Pātāla to ashes, proceeds to the earth and consumes it also. A vast whirlpool of eddying flame then spreads to the region of the atmosphere and the sphere of the celestials and wraps them in ruin. The three spheres shew like a frying pan amidst the surrounding flames that prey upon all movable and stationary things. O great saint, the inhabitants of the two upper spheres, having satisfied their respective duties and being assailed by the heat, repair to Maharloka. When that becomes heated its inhabitants, who after the full period of stay, are desirous of ascending to higher regions depart for the Janaloka.
Having consumed the whole universe in the person of Rudra, Janārddana, breathes fourth heavy clouds, and those called Samvartta resembling huge elephants in bulk overspread the sky, roaring and darting lightnings. Some are as white as the water-lily, some are dusky like smoke; some are yellow; some are of a dun colour, like that of an ass; some like ashes sprinkled on the forehead; some are deep blue, as the lapis lazuly; some azure like the sapphire; some are white at the couch or the jasmine; some are black as colly rum; some are like the lady-bird; some are of fierceness of red arsenic and some are like the wing of the painted joy. Such is the colour of these massy clouds; in form some resemble towns, some mountains, some are like houses and hovels and some are like columns. Huge in size and loud in thunder they fill space. Showering down torrents of water, those clouds quench the dreadful fires which involve the three worlds and then rain incessantly a hundred years and deluge the whole universe. Showering down in drops as large as dice these rains overspread the earth and fill the middle region and inundate the celestial sphere. The world is now enshrouded in darkness and all things animate and inanimate having perished, the clouds continue to pour down waters for more than a hundred years.