The World / Hindu Eschatology (Yugas and Pralaya)
Hindu Eschatology (Yugas and Pralaya)
The End as a wheel: four yugas descending from gold to iron, the final age Kali Yuga ending with Kalki on a white horse, and the universe itself dissolving into the cosmic ocean at each kalpa's close.
Hindu eschatology is the archive's largest wheel: time with no finish line, only rotating epochs. The end of the age and the end of the universe are different gears in the same machine — the Kali Yuga ends with Kalki's judgment, the kalpa with Vishnu's sleep — and both guarantee a new beginning. See the myth entries for the yuga, the avatar, the dissolution, and the flood.
Key texts
- Vishnu Purana 4.24 and 6.1–8 (the yugas, the end of Kali)
- Bhagavata Purana 12.2–4 (the signs of the age; Kalki)
- Manu Smriti 1.61–86 (the ages); Markandeya Purana (the flood of Manu)
- Bhagavad Gita 8.17–18 (the day of Brahma)
Key figures
Brahma · Vishnu · Kalki · Manu · Shesha · Yama
The end, in order
- 01The four yugas decline: Krita (gold), Treta (silver), Dvapara (bronze), Kali (iron)
- 02In Kali Yuga, dharma decays: virtue, lifespan, and truth shrink in stages
- 03At the age's end, Kalki, the tenth avatar of Vishnu, rides from Shambhala on a white horse with a flaming sword
- 04Kalki judges the wicked; the virtuous return to their true selves
- 05The kalpa ends: the universe dissolves (pralaya) into the cosmic ocean; Vishnu sleeps on Shesha
- 06After Brahma's night, the next kalpa begins — the same cosmos, recreated
What survives
The seed of the next age — Manu and the seven sages aboard the ark; the universe itself, reabsorbed and reborn.
Stories in this tradition
Kali Yuga: the Age of Darkness
draftedThe age of darkness: dharma shrinks to a quarter, lifespans to a fraction, and the world decays by a fixed schedule — an apocalypse of decline that its own believers cannot agree to date.
Kalki: the Avatar on the White Horse
draftedThe tenth and final avatar of Vishnu: a white horse, a flaming sword, a judgment of the wicked at the close of Kali Yuga — the savior whose name traveled as far as Tibet's Shambhala war.
Pralaya: the Dissolution of the Universe
draftedThe universe as a day: at the close of Brahma's day, fire and flood unmake the cosmos, Vishnu sleeps on the serpent Shesha, and after his night the same creation begins again.
The Flood of Manu
draftedIndia's flood: the first man is warned by a fish that grows to a mountain, builds an ark, and reseeds the world — a remnant story with an animal rescuer.