s; then follows a flood which completes the annihilation.
Thereafter follows a period equal to one thousand cycles (of twelve
thousand years each), which is called 'Brahm[=a]'s night,' for during
these twelve million years Brahm[=a] sleeps; and the new Krita age
begins again "when Brahm[=a] wakes up" (iii. 188. 29, 69; 189.
42).[51] All the gods are destroyed in the universal destruction, that
is, re-absorbed into the All-god, for there is no such thing as
annihilation, either of spirit or of matter (which is illusion).
Consequently the gods' heaven and the spirits of good men in that
heaven are also re-absorbed into that Supreme, to be re-born in the
new age. This is what is meant by the constant harping on
quasi-immortality. Righteousness, sacrifice, bravery, will bring man
to heaven, but, though he joins the gods, with them he is destroyed.
They and he, after millions of years, will be re-born in the new
heaven and the new earth. To escape this eventual re-birth one must
desire absorption into the Supreme, not annihilation, but unity with
God, so that one remains untouched by the new order at the end of
Brahm[=a]'s 'day.' There are, of course, not lacking views of them
that, taking the precept grossly, give a less dignified appearance to
the teaching, and, in fact, upset its real intent. Thus, in the very
same Puranic passage from which is taken the description above (III.
188), it is said that a seer, who miraculously outlived the universal
destruction of one cycle, was kindly swallowed by Vishnu, and that, on
entering his stomach (the absorption idea in Puranic coarseness), he
saw everything which had been destroyed, mountains, rivers, cities,
the four castes engaged in their duties, etc. In other words, only
transference of locality has taken place. But this account reads
almost like a satire.

One of the most striking features of the Hindu religions, as they have
been traced thus far, is the identification of right with light, and
wrong with darkness. We have referred to it several times already. In
the Vedic age the deities are luminous, while the demons and the abode
of the wicked generally are of darkness. This view, usually considered
Iranian and Zoroastrian, is as radically, if not so emphatically,
Indic. It might be said, indeed, that it is more deeply implanted in
the worship of the Hindus than in that of the Iranians, inasmuch as
the latter religion enunciates and promulgates the doctrine, while the
form