Before time could be measured, there was the Wheel.
It turned once, and a universe was born. It turned again, and the universe was gone.
Creation and dissolution. Day and night. Kalpa after Kalpa.
The old texts spoke of it in verses, not equations. They whispered of four Yugas, of Meru rising at the center, of poison swallowed by a blue throat, of avatars who walked the Earth whenever the balance cracked.
Priests called them stories. Astronomers called them metaphors.
But the Records remember differently.
Twelve Kalpas have already turned. Twelve complete cycles of worlds rising and falling, of civilizations climbing toward the stars only to vanish when the Wheel spun again. The first six left traces—messages carved into pulsars, ruins buried under oceans, fragments hidden in myths. The last six are gone. Lost. Erased as if they never were.
One Kalpa ended in fire. Entire star clusters ignited at once, their light folding into a single blinding wave that scorched every inhabited world. Another ended in silence. A billion voices were cut off in a breath, as if the universe itself had forgotten they existed. The Eleventh ended in hunger—great shadows drifted between galaxies, swallowing suns like sparks.
The Twelfth Kalpa runs now. But it runs short. The Wheel shudders. The night comes too soon.
In the flicker of collapsing stars, a warning pulses through the void:
> "This is not the first Kalpa."
And somewhere on a small blue planet, a man listens.
..........................
(Explanations for Key Words )
Kalpa → A full cycle of creation and destruction of the universe. In Purāṇic tradition, one Kalpa = one "day" of Brahmā (4.32 billion years).
Yuga → An age or era inside a Kalpa. There are four Yugas (Satya, Treta, Dvāpara, Kali), each shorter and darker than the one before.
Kali Yuga → The present age, lasting 432,000 years. Described as the darkest and most chaotic of the Yugas.
Meru → The cosmic axis or central mountain of the universe in mythology. In the novel, reimagined as a galactic machine at the core.
Lokas → Fourteen realms of existence, stacked like levels. In the novel, visualized as rings in the pulsar spiral.
Hālahala → The poison that emerged when the gods and demons churned the cosmic ocean. In the story, represented by gamma bursts in space.
Blue Throat (Neelkanth) → Refers to Śiva swallowing the poison to save creation. In the story, a cosmic filter that absorbs deadly bursts.
Asuras → Traditionally demons, but here they are entropy-driven alien forces that feed on collapsing universes.
Devas → Traditionally gods, but here advanced civilizations guarding the cosmic cycle.
Avatāra → A descent of divine power in human/alien form to restore balance. In the story, revealed as genetic/cosmic interventions across Kalpas.
Pralaya / Mahāpralaya → Dissolution. The end of an age (Pralaya) or the total collapse of the universe (Mahāpralaya).