When the cycle of creation is run down, the energy of the manifested word is weakening. He alone, the Unconceivable, is unchangeable (ever latent), but the Creative Force, though also eternal, as it has been in the former from “no beginning,” yet must be subject to periodical cycles of activity and rest; as it had a _beginning_ in one of its aspects, when it first emanated, therefore must also have an end. Thus, the evening succeeds the day, and the night of the deity approaches. Brahma is gradually falling asleep. In one of the books of _Sohar_, we read the following: “As Moses was keeping a vigil on Mount Sinai, in company with the Deity, who was concealed from his sight by a cloud, he felt a great fear overcome him and suddenly asked: ‘Lord, where art Thou ... sleepest thou, O Lord?’ And the _Spirit_ answered him: ‘I never sleep; were I to fall asleep for a moment _before my time_, all the Creation would crumble into dissolution in one instant.’” And Vamadeva-Modēly describes the “Night of Brahma,” or the second period of the Divine Unknown existence, thus: “Strange noises are heard, proceeding from every point.... These are the precursors of the Night of Brahma; _dusk rises at the horizon_ and the Sun passes away behind the thirtieth degree of Macara (sign of the zodiac), and will reach no more the sign of the _Minas_ (zodiacal _pisces_, or fish). The gurus of the pagodas appointed to watch the rās-chakr (Zodiac), may now break their circle and instruments, for they are henceforth useless. “Gradually light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabitable spots multiply on the earth, the air becomes more and more rarefied; the springs of waters dry up, the great rivers see their waves exhausted, the ocean shows its sandy bottom, and plants die. Men and animals decrease in size daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets can hardly gravitate in space; they are extinguished one by one, like a lamp which the hand of the chokra (servant) neglects to replenish. Sourya (the Sun) flickers and goes out, matter falls into dissolution (pralaya), and Brahma merges back into Dyäus, the Unrevealed God, and his task being accomplished, he falls asleep. Another day is passed, night sets in and continues until the future dawn. “And now again re-enter into the golden egg of His Thought, the germs of all that exist, as the divine Manu tells us. During His peaceful rest, the animated beings, endowed with the principles of action, cease their functions, and all feeling (manas) becomes dormant. When they are all absorbed in the SUPREME SOUL, this Soul of all the beings sleeps in complete repose, till the day when it resumes its form, and awakes again from its primitive darkness.”[578] If we now examine the ten mythical avatars of Vishnu, we find them recorded in the following progression: 1. Matsya-Avatar: as a fish. It will also be his tenth and last avatar, at the end of the Kali-yug. 2. Kurm-Avatar: as a tortoise. 3. Varaha: as a boar.