The world will come to an end when there will be complete rule of adharma on earth. When Dharma disappears from earth, the world becomes ready for total annihilation. How the world will come to an end? This question is answered in many Hindu Puranas.
The end begins with a fierce drought for hundred years. There will be famine and without water, the vital element of life, there will be no food and organisms will perish in their entirety. The earth will be devoid of life.
Then there will an inferno. Colossal fire will devour everything on earth. The inferno will last for a century and the earth will be converted to a pile of ash.
The inferno will be followed by gales. These tempestuous winds will roar for a hundred years.
Gales will be followed by tornadoes, cyclones and torrential rains. The rains will be so severe that nothing will be visible on earth. A group of six storm clouds will torment earth for another one hundred years. The six storm clouds are –
Samvartaka – it will leave a trail of destruction in its cataclysmic wake.
Bheemanadam – downpour with frenzied thunder
Dronam – this huge downpour will crush the world with its humongous weight
Indram – it will lash earth with knife-edged drops of rain
Balaahakam – moving mountain of water
Vidyuthpatakam – rain with blinding flashes of lightning
The earth will lay submerged beneath the waters.
On this waters floated a single banyan leaf and on it lays an infant sucking his own toe – symbolic of the absolute, devoid of attributes, the very essence of being. The next cycle of creation begins when that wishes.