Janárddana, in the person of Rudra, having consumed the whole world, breathes forth heavy clouds; and those called Samvartta, resembling vast elephants in bulk, overspread the sky, roaring, and darting lightnings. Some are as black as the blue lotus; some are white as the water-lily; some are dusky, like smoke; and 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 lazuli; some azure, like the sapphire; some are white, as the conch or the jasmine; and some are black, as collyrium; some are of bright red, like the ladybird; some are of the fierceness of red arsenic; and some are like the wing of the painted jay. Such are these massy clouds in hue: in form some resemble towns, some mountains, some are like houses and hovels, and some are like columns. Mighty in size, and loud in thunder, they fill all space. Showering down torrents of water, these clouds quench the dreadful fires which involve the three worlds, and then they rain uninterruptedly for a hundred years, and deluge the whole world. Pouring down in drops as large as dice, these rains overspread the earth, and fill the middle region, 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 for more than a hundred years.

Footnotes

630:1 The first is called Naimittaka, 'occasional' or 'incidental,' or Bráhmya, as occasioned by the intervals of Brahmá's days; the destruction of creatures, though not of the substance of the world, occurring during his night. The general resolution of the elements into their primitive source, or Prakriti, is the Prákritika destruction, and occurs at the end of Brahmá's life. The third, the absolute or final, Átyantika, is individual annihilation; Moksha, exemption for ever from future existence. The Bhágavata here notices the fourth kind, of which mention occurred in a preceding passage (p. 56), Nitya or constant dissolution; explaining it to be the imperceptible change that all things suffer in the various stages of growth and decay, life and death. 'The various conditions of beings subject to change are occasioned by that constant dissolution of life which is rapidly produced by the resistless stream of time, taking every thing perpetually away.' The Váyu describes but three kinds of Pralaya, omitting the Nitya.

630:2 Maitreya has a rather indifferent memory (see p. 22); but the periods specified in the two places do not agree. In the first book two Parárddhas, as equal to one hundred years of Brahmá, are 311.040.000.000.000 years of mortals.