The End of the Ages · प्रलय

What do the scriptures say happens when an age ends? The Puranas describe Kalki, the return of Satya Yuga, several kinds of dissolution and the night of Brahma. They never describe a single end of the world — and they warn against anyone who claims to know the date.

[Traditional account]

The Vishnu Purana (Book 4) and Bhagavata Purana (Canto 12) describe late Kali Yuga as a time when wealth alone confers status, promises are easily broken, rulers neglect their people and the seasons fall out of order. These passages are prophecy in a moral voice — a mirror held up to every age that reads them.

Tradition says that when dharma is almost lost, Vishnu will be born as Kalki in the village of Shambhala, to a brahmana named Vishnuyasha, ride a white horse named Devadatta and restore righteousness. Satya Yuga then begins again. The Kalki Purana tells the story in detail…

The texts distinguish several dissolutions (pralaya), different in scale and in meaning. None of them is described as the end of existence itself.

• The four kinds of pralaya
• Brahma's night and the new dawn
• When will Kali Yuga end?
• The Kalki traditions
• What this teaches

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• Vishnu Purana — Book 4.24; Book 6
• Bhagavata Purana — Canto 12
• Kalki Purana
• Mahabharata — Vana Parva 188–189