Types of Annihilation

Chapter 4

Sukadeva Goswami outlined four main types of annihilation that occur. Firstly, there is occasional annihilation (naimittika) which is the destruction of the universe (during the night) after a ‘day of Brahma.’ At this time the universes are absorbed within the body of the Lord while Brahma sleeps. Secondly, there is elemental annihilation (prakrtika) which takes place after Brahma’s life of one hundred years.

Aside from these universal annihilations, is the ultimate annihilation (atyantika). This occurs when the individual soul awakens his spiritual consciousness and gains liberation from material encagement. For those still absorbed in bodily consciousness, there is the experience of constant annihilation (nityada), or the repeated birth and death of the material body that all conditioned souls experience.