Chapter 696

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Pralaya—a word already explained—is not a term that applies only to every “Night of Brahmâ,” or the World’s Dissolution following every Manvantara, equal to 71 Mahâyugas. It applies also to each “Obscuration” as well, and even to every Cataclysm that puts an end, by Fire or by Water in turn, to each Root-Race. Pralaya is a general term like the word “Manu” the generic name for the Shishtas, who, under the appellation of “Kings,” are said in the Purânas to be preserved “with the seed of all things, in an ark, from the waters of that inundation [or the fires of a general volcanic conflagration, the commencement of which we already see for our Fifth Race in the terrible earthquakes and eruptions of these late years, and especially in the present year (1888)], which, in the season of a Pralaya overspreads the world [the Earth].” (Vishnu Purâna, Wilson’s Trans., I. lxxxi.) Time is only a form of Vishnu—truly, as Parâshara says in the Vishnu Purâna. In the Hindû Yugas and Kalpas, we have the regular descending series 4, 3, 2, with ciphers, multiplied, as occasion requires, for Esoteric purposes, but not, as Wilson and other Orientalists thought, for “sectarian embellishments.” A Kalpa may be an Age, or Day of Brahmâ, or a sidereal Kalpa, astronomical and earthly. These calculations are found in all the Purânas, but some differ—as for instance, the “Year of the seven Rishis,” 3,030 mortal years, and the “Year of Dhruva,” 9,090, in the Linga Purâna, which are again Esoteric, and do represent actual (and secret) chronology. As said in the Brahma Vaivarta: “Chronologers compute a Kalpa by the life of Brahmâ. Minor Kalpas, as Samvarta and the rest, are numerous.” “Minor Kalpas” denote here every period of Destruction, as was well understood by Wilson himself, who explains the latter as “those in which the Samvarta wind or other destructive agents operate.” (Ibid., p. 54.)