No computation of either the Four Ages, or the Manvantaras, has ever been unriddled by our very learned Orientalists, who have therefore cut the Gordian Knot by proclaiming the whole "a figment of the Brahmanical brain." So be it, and may the great scholars rest in peace.
This "figment" is given in the Preliminary Sections which preface Anthropogenesis in Book II., and with esoteric additions.
Let us see, however, what were the three kinds of pralayas , and what is the popular belief about them.
For once it agrees with Esotericism.
Of the pralaya before which fourteen Manvantaras elapse, having over them as many presiding Manus, and at whose close occurs the "incidental" or Brahma's dissolution, it is said in Vishnu Purana , in condensed form, that "at the end of a thousand periods of four ages, which complete a day of Brahma, the earth is almost exhausted.
The eternal Avyaya (Vishnu) assumes then the character of Rudra (the destroyer, Siva) and re-unites all his creatures to himself.
He enters the Seven rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of the globe; he causes the moisture to evaporate, thus drying up the whole Earth.
Oceans and rivers, torrents and small streams, are all exhaled.
Thus fed with abundant moisture the seven solar rays become sevens suns by dilation, and they finally set the world on fire.
Hari, the destroyer of all things, who is 'the flame of time, Kalagni ,' finally consumes the Earth.
Then Rudra, becoming Janardana, breathes clouds and rain." There are many kinds of Pralaya , but three chief ones are specially mentioned in old Hindu books; and of these, as Wilson shows: -- The first is called N AIMITTIKA* "occasional" or "incidental," caused by the intervals of "Brahma's Days;" it is the destruction of creatures, of all that lives and has a form, but not of the substance which remains in statu quo till the new DAWN in that "Night." The [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * In the Vedanta and Nyaya "nimitta" (from which "Naimittika") is rendered as the efficient cause, when antithesized with upadana the physical or material cause.
In the Sankhya pradhana is a cause inferior to Brahma, or rather Brahma being himself a cause, is superior to Pradhana.
Hence "incidental" is wrongly translated, and ought to be translated, as shown by some scholars, "Ideal" cause, and even real cause would have been better.
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other is called P RAKRITIKA -- and occurs at the end of the Age or Life of Brahma, when everything that exists is resolved into the primal element, to be remodelled at the end of that longer night.
But the third, Atyantika , does not concern the Worlds or the Universe, but only the individualities of some people; it is thus individual pralaya or NIRVANA; after having reached which, there is no more future existence possible, no rebirth till after the Maha Pralaya.
The latter night, lasting as it does 311,040,000,000,000 years, and having the possibility of being almost doubled in case the lucky Jivanmukti reaches Nirvana at an early period of a Manvantara, is long enough to be regarded as eternal , if not endless.
The Bhagavata ( XII ., iv, 35) speaks of a fourth kind of pralaya, the Nitya or constant dissolution, and explains it as the change which takes place imperceptibly in everything in this Universe from the globe down to the atom -- without cessation.
It is growth and decay (life and death).
When the Maha Pralaya arrives, the inhabitants of Swar-loka (the upper sphere) disturbed by the conflagration, seek refuge "with the Pitris, their progenitors, the Manus, the Seven Rishis, the various orders of celestial Spirits and the Gods, in Maharloka." When the latter is reached also, the whole of the above enumerated beings migrate in their turn from Maharloka, and repair to Jana-loka in " their subtile forms , destined to become re - embodied , in similar capacities as their former , when the world is renewed at the beginning of the succeeding Kalpa ;" (Vayu Purana).
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These clouds, mighty in size, and loud in thunder, fill up all space (Nabhas-tala)," goes on Vishnu Purana.
-- (Book VI., ch.
iii.) "Showering down torrents of water, these clouds quench the dreadful fires, and then they rain uninterruptedly for a hundred (divine) years, and deluge the whole world (Solar System).
Pouring down, in drops as large as dice, these rains overspread the earth, and fill the middle region ( Bhuvaloka ) and inundate heaven.
The world is now enveloped in darkness, and all things animate, or inanimate, having perished, the clouds continue to pour down their waters" .
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"and the Night of Brahma reigns supreme over the scene of desolation .
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." This is what we call in the Esoteric Doctrine a "Solar Pralaya" .
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When the waters have reached the region of the Seven Rishis, and the world (our Solar System) is one ocean, they stop.
The breath of Vishnu becomes a strong wind, which blows for another hundred (divine) years until all clouds are dispersed.
The wind is then reabsorbed: and " T HAT, of which all things are made, the Lord by whom all things exist, He who is inconceivable, without beginning, the beginning of the universe, reposes, sleeping upon Sesha (the Serpent of Infinity) in the midst of the deep.
The Adikrit [[Vol.
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(Creator?) Hari , sleeps upon the ocean of Space in the form of Brahma -- glorified by Sanaka* and the Siddha (Saints) of Jana-loka, and contemplated by the holy denizens of Brahma-loka, anxious for final liberation, involved in mystic slumber, the celestial personification of his own illusions.
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." This is the Pratisanchara (dissolution?) termed incidental because Hari is its incidental (ideal) Cause.
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.** When the Universal Spirit wakes, the world revives; when he closes his eyes, all things fall upon the bed of mystic slumber.
In like manner, as 1,000 great ages constitute a Day of Brahma (in the original it is Padma-yoni, the same as Abjayoni -- "lotos-born," not Brahma), so his Night consists of the same period.
The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.
The entire passage is structured around the periodic destruction and renewal of the cosmos after vast cycles (Brahma's Day/Night, Manvantaras, Maha Pralaya), with the explicit statement that 'when the Universal Spirit wakes, the world revives.'
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The supreme principle is described purely by negation and transcendence of categories: 'He who is inconceivable, without beginning, the beginning of the universe' — described only by what it is not or beyond what it exceeds.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage narrates the cyclical origin of the world after each dissolution — 'When the Universal Spirit wakes, the world revives' — describing how the cosmos comes into being from the undifferentiated state of the Maha Pralaya.
The doctrine that the divine is present within all things and the universe itself, pervading creation rather than remaining solely transcendent above it. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about whether that substance indwells its parts) and from kingdom_within (the divine present specifically IN THE INDIVIDUAL human, accessible without mediation) — divine_immanence is the general pervading-presence claim applied to all of creation, not a human-specific indwelling.
The passage describes the Universal Spirit pervading and constituting all of creation — 'the Lord by whom all things exist' — who 'reposes, sleeping upon Sesha in the midst of the deep,' indicating the divine as present within and sustaining the cosmos rather than solely transcendent.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The passage describes multiple non-physical cosmic levels (Swar-loka, Maharloka, Jana-loka, Brahma-loka) populated by beings in 'subtile forms' that are ordinarily imperceptible and through which consciousness migrates during cosmic dissolution.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The passage identifies 'THAT, of which all things are made, the Lord by whom all things exist, He who is inconceivable, without beginning, the beginning of the universe' as the singular undivided principle from which all multiplicity flows and into which all returns.
The Hermetic doctrine of a measured swing or pendulum motion between poles — action and reaction, flow and outflow, rise and fall — operating in mental, physical, and cosmic-historical registers alike. Distinct from apocatastasis (cosmic-scale eschatological restoration after vast cycles) in naming a constant, ever-present oscillation rather than a singular restorative event.
The passage presents cosmic existence as a measured oscillation between creation and dissolution, wakefulness and slumber, fire and water — 'when he closes his eyes, all things fall upon the bed of mystic slumber' — operating across multiple registers (individual, solar, universal).