According to Saiva belief, Mahadeva (Supreme Siva) destroys the universe, beings, gods including Brahma, Vishnu and Siva (adjunct status of the same Gods). Saiva Siddhantists consider Supreme Siva, Paraparam (Beyond the Beyond, Supreme Supreme) as their God of gods; Siva, one of the Holy Triumvirate, is a mere god of the triad. The students from the west believe that Saiva Siddhantists selectively elevated the status of Siva of the earlier Triad to the Super-supreme status. Supreme Siva stays while Brahma and Vishnu come and go in this and many other countless universes.

Henotheists of Hindu religion are of the belief that Siva and Vishnu are of equal status, though Siva and Vishnu may stride up and down the parallel hierarchal ladders of their respective sects; Siva and Vishnu do not knock each other's ladder for supremacy; they switch their relative vertical positions with amity.

MahaVishnu is superior to Vishnu and is equal to Sadasiva, the revealer of Grace and the third Consciousness in Suddha Tattvas. Lord Siva performs his Tandava (wild dance) wearing a garland of skulls. The universe undergoes retrograde involution; each substance (like earth) or element falls back into its previous state until the state of Mahat is reached, when Mahat and Devi (Siva's spouse) merge into the body of Siva. Pradhana (Primary essential progenitor substance, matter) and Purusa (Spirit) exist separately in him and the gunas are inert.

At the onset of Prakrtika Pralaya, there will be a drought followed by scorching sun, which will be followed by heavy downpour for one hundred years. Now the egg of the universe will rupture and dissolve in water, which marks the death of Brahma.

Sankarsana, Vishnu’s manifestation, sends forth the poison-fire from below. The egg of the universe catches fire on all its sides. The wind blows violently for one hundred years. The universe is reduced to dust and smoke. The universe and beings vaporize to a subtle state of smell.  

Smell from conflagration dissolves in water. Involution takes place from the gross to subtle elements until it reaches the element sound. In a linear retrograde fashion the earth dissolves (or involutes into) in the water, the water in the fire, the fire in the air, the air in the ether, the ether in the senses, the senses in the subtle elements, the subtle elements in their subtle sources, the latter in Mahat, and Mahat in three gunas. The sensory and motor organs (Indreyas) merge into their respective deities. The deities merge with their inner controller. The mind merges with Sattvika ahankara, sound with Tamasa ahankara. Ahankara itself merges into Mahat, which dissolves in three gunas, which dissolve in the unmanifest Prakrti, the latter in the imperishable and the latter in the darkness. Darkness becomes one with the transcendent, which is neither existing nor nonexisting. Joseph Campbell explains what transcendent is. In Occidental theology, the word transcendent is used to mean outside of the world. In the East, it means outside of thought. Brahma, the creator merges or involutes into avyakta or Mula Prakrti. The earth, the fire, and all other elements lose their intrinsic properties and merge or fall into Mula Prakrti. As you see, the universe is created from the undifferentiated (Unmanifest) Mula Prakrti; and on dissolution, it retraces its steps backwards. Mula Prakrti merges with Time-Spirit, which stops all its functions. Time-spirit merges with the final repository and the wielder of Maya, the Atman also known as Purusa. The Lord refers to Eternal Atman as Me.

Bhagavata Purana states in Book twelve, Chapter four that the Unmanifest Primordial matter is Pradhāna (Mula Prakrti), which is the progenitor unmanifest substance, not subject to Time, modification, death, and decay; it has no beginning, no end and is the cause of everything. It has no form and all elements are present in a potential state.

Sankara's view: Between the Brahman and the Universe, there is Brahman's māyā (time, space, and causation) as the divine mysterious driving or projecting force.

Here is a table of the Indriyas and the respective presiding deities

QTR*: The quarters of the world.

When Perialvar sings the praise of Baby Krishna in verse 40 of Divyaprabhandam, he describes the pralaya or dissolution:  “You swallow the earth, the mountains, the oceans, and the seven worlds and keep them in your protective custody.” 

According to Samkhya theory, the evolution and involution are linear starting from the Transcendent and ending in the world and vice versa. In involution, the world burns up. Dissolution (retrograde involution) takes place until the stage of the Transcendent. The next cycle of evolution starts.

The Creation according to Aitareya Upanishad

Creation Part two

In the beginning, if there were ever any such period, there was only One. That was Intelligence. It neither winked nor blinked nor budged. Then He created these worlds: light, death, and water. Heaven supported the waters, the light rays were the atmosphere, and the Death was the earth. It earned the name death, because people die on earth. The water was below the earth’s crest and He (the Lord) fashioned a person from the water and gave him a form. (That is why the water is the major constituent of the body.) He brooded over him; He separated the mouth, the nostrils, the eyes, the ears, the skin, the heart, the navel, and the generative organ. And along with them came the speech and the fire, the breath and the air, the sight and the sun, the hearing and the space, the tactile sense, the hairs, the plants and the trees, the mind and the moon, the out-breath, and the semen. (My note: This should remind us of the development of fetus in utero and the differentiation of the primordial germ cells into ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm and their respective organs.) It is worthwhile to remember that according to the Upanishads, the stem substance for the whole universe and the living beings is ether. Ether is totipotent and can transform into any substance. You heard the expression that we are carbon-based. According to Upanishads, we are ether-based.

A deity or divinity presides over each organ and sense. They (the senses and the organs) fell into the ocean (of Samsāra or birth and rebirth), and became hungry and thirsty. The person and the divinities beseeched for an abode ― a body, wherein they can eat.

Instead, the creator or Intelligence sent forth a cow and another person. The hunger and the thirst wanted a house for themselves. The creator said that he would make them partakers and beneficiaries of offerings made to the divinities: the mouth, the nostrils, eyes and the like. That is how an offering or an oblation made to the divinities also satisfied the hunger and thirst. Now something is missing: That is food to sustain the divinities and satisfy the hunger and thirst. He brooded over the waters: Food issued forth from waters in a form and wanted to run away. (This means that the food’s main ingredient is water and depends on it for its existence). The person tried to hold the food by speech, breath, sight, hearing, skin, mind, generative organ, and out-breath. Now we have the body, the indreyas (organs and senses), and the food. The body is considered as a city; speech, breath and the like are the servants waiting on the body (serving the body). Who is the master of this body? Who is the enjoyer of the senses? So far, there is none. What is the portal of entry for this enjoyer? Where are the gates by which the enjoyer can enter, animate, and spiritualize this body? (The nine gates of the body are the two eyes, the two ears, the two nostrils, one mouth, one generative, and one reproductive organ). There are two portals in the body for entry, namely the crown and the forefoot. In the crown, it is Vidrti, the opening (brahma-randhra) in the sagittal suture of the skull, also known as anterior fontanel―the area corresponding to the soft spot on the top of the baby’s head. It is sahasrara, the highest center of spiritual consciousness in Kundalini yoga and the seat of the thousand-petalled lotus. By this portal, the self enters the body; the self from the time of entry into the body moves among three abodes of residence according to the level of consciousness: wakefulness, dream sleep, and deep sleep; Turiya is the fourth state experienced only by yogis. The right eye is the abode during the wakefulness, the inner mind during dream sleep, and the space in the heart during deep sleep.   

The self is said to have three births: The first birth is at the time of insemination and not fertilization. (You would guess that the first birth is fertilization of the maternal egg, but it is not so here.) The second birth is at the time of embryo’s development in the womb of the mother. The natal and postnatal period until death is not a consideration here. He is the substitute for or the recipient of the father’s pious deeds. After doing his work, having grown old, and departing this world, he is born again: That is his third birth. Who is this self, which animates and spiritualizes this body? He is Brahmā, Indrā, Prajāpati, the five elements namely earth, air, ether, water, light, that which is part of the fire, and any being that breathes. They make the self and such a collective entity is the prime mover. He is the Intelligence and the final Reality. This intelligent self rises from this world at the time of death, goes to heaven and becomes immortal. The self that entered by the anterior fontanel exits from the same portal. That is briefly the story of the transformation of water and other elements into a physical body with its organs and senses and their respective presiding deities and the soul.

Brahma and the body of evidence

CREATION PART THREE

Brahma in the first flush of creation created mind-born sages by name Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanātana and Sanatkumāra and (Rbhu) and asked them to proliferate. (Sanaka, Sanatana and Sanatkumara were triplets (born simultaneously!), devoid of three types of miseries, according to Linga Purana 20.85-87.) Those sages, named as Urdhvaretās* (he whose vital fluid ascends facilitating the Bramacharin to attain complete mastery over his generative and recreational impulses), refused to comply, and began worshipping Lord Vāsudeva. Thus disappointed, insulted, and angry, Brahma tried hard to contain his anger, but His anger broke forth as a red-colored boy from his forehead between the eyebrows. He was named Rudra, who cried, demanded, and received control of heart, senses, vital air, ether, air, fire, water, earth, sun, moon, and penance as places of his residence. Rudra means “Red and flashing One.” (Rudra = [Ru = to cry] + [dru = to move] = to cry and move.) When an infant is born it cries and moves indicating life and breath and the need for food.  The glabella-born Lord Rudra was half male and half female, the former developed into eleven Vyuhas (manifestations).  Rudra received many adulatory names and many adoring wives: eleven in all, collectively known as Rudranis.  Vayu Purana (Chapter 27) lists only eight such manifestations (Astamurti) of Rudra.  Glabella = Trikuuti = bone of the forehead or protuberance.

    Urdhvaretās*: Vital fluid, according to Hindu beliefs, exists in a subtle state throughout the body. Sukra = White, Silver, Vital fluid, Essence, Semen. When sexual urge finds expression, the subtle substance gathers at the gonads and prostate and assumes a gross form. To rise to the level of Urdhvaretas is to prevent emission and facilitate reabsorption into the body of the stored seeds for in the perfected one it remains subtle for ever with atrophy of the gonads and involution of phallus -- signs of Urdhvaretas. Because of the subtle nature of Sukra and its pervasion throughout the chaste body in Urdhvaretas and lack of it in the gonadal and prostatic fluid, he smells like a lotus. (On the other hand, ordinary mortals (men) smell like goats for obvious reasons.) In perfect ones, the seminal energy rises to become the nectar (Amrta) of Siva Sakti, according to Tantric Texts. This diffuse radiant energy (Tejas) circulating in the body of the perfected ones, it is said, they, when cut, bleed not blood but tejas in the form of semen.

Bhagavatam: Rudra and his eleven names, and eleven Rudranis, first the male names and later the names of his wives: (Bhagavatam, third Canto, Chapter 12) Manyu, Manu, Mahinasa, Mahān, Siva, Rtadhwaja, Ugrareta, Bhava, Kāla, Vāmadeva, Dhrtavrata. The wives are Dhi, Vrrti, Usana, Uma, Niyut, Sarpi, Ila, Ambika, Iravati, Sudha, and Diksa. 

Vayu Prana (Chapter 27) lists only eight manifestations of Rudra (Nila-lohita/dark-blue and red).