And
after the destruction of the _Naga_ world also in the subterranean
regions in the same way, vast masses of many-coloured and loud-pealing
clouds, with streaks of lightning, spreading along the entire welkin,
had appeared on high. Then pouring down water in torrents thick as axles
of cars, and filling the space everywhere, these extinguishing that
all-consuming fire! When at the close of four thousand _Yugas_ the Earth
thus became flooded with water, like one vast sea, and all mobile
creatures were hushed in death, and the sun and the moon and the winds
were all destroyed, and the Universe was devoid of planets and stars,
the Supreme Being called Narayana, unknowable by the senses, adorned
with a thousand heads and as many eyes and legs, became desirous of
rest. And the serpent Sesha, looking terrible with his thousand hoods,
and shining with the splendour of ten thousand suns, and white as the
_Kunda_ flower or the moon or a string of pearls, or the white lotus, or
milk, or the fibres of a lotus stalk, served for his conch. And that
adorable and omnipotent God thus slept on the bosom of the deep,
enveloping all space with nocturnal gloom. And when his creative faculty
was excited, he awoke and found the Universe denuded of everything. In
this connection, the following _sloka_ is recited respecting the meaning
of _Narayana_. "Water was created by (the _Rishi_) _Nara_, and it formed
his corpus; therefore do we hear it styled as _Nara_.
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