Does the universe get recreated at the end of every Yuga?

Question

I read in Mahabharata that at the end of every Yuga , the universe gets destroyed and new universe is created again. But it was not very much explicit.

Adi Parva (Anukramnik Parva Verse 38-39)

And what is seen in the universe, whether animate or inanimate, of created things, will at the end of the world, and after the expiration of the Yuga, be again confounded. And, at the commencement of other Yugas, all things will be renovated, and, like the various fruits of the earth, succeed each other in the due order of their seasons. Thus continueth perpetually to revolve in the world, without beginning and without end, this wheel which causeth the destruction of all things.

My question is - Does the universe get destroyed and created again at the end of each Yuga ? What is written about it in other scriptures ?

Answer 1

That statement on "the end of a Yuga" might be better interpreted as an implication to the end of a Kalpa (the daytime of god BrahmA), and not the regular end of Yugas (the Mahayuga-cycle).

Translating the Hindi Translation from Gita Press Gorakhpur into English by self

याद्‌ हर्यत काचदकूत स्यात्ररजगमम्‌ | पुनः संक्षिप्यते सब जगत्पाप्त चुणक्षगे ॥ ३६ ॥
यथताचतुकिगानि नानारूपाणि पर्थ॑ये । द्यन्ते तानि लान्येव त्तथा साचा युगादिषु । ३७ ॥

Whatever movable and immovable, animate, inanimate, in the world is visible, all of it gets merged back into its source at pralaya (dissolution).

Just like the various flowers-fruits of the earth will succeed in one another in the due order of their seasons, similarly, at the end of a Kalpa all those objects in the world get dissolved, and are re-created at the beginning of a new Kalpa.

This type of Pralaya is known as Naimittika Pralaya as explained in the Garuda Purana Ch. 233, or in the Vishnu Purana Book 4 - Chapter 3, and Chapter 4, or the Dainaṃdina Pralaya as explained in the Skanda Purana Verse 2.7.20.23-39.

^{Note that both the Dainaṃdina Pralaya and the Naimittika Pralaya are one and the same}

---

So to answer - Does the universe gets destroyed and created again at the end of each Yuga

No.

The complete Universal dissolution and recreation occur only at the passing of the hundred years of god BrahmA, and not otherwise.

In the Kalpanta pralaya, there's major destruction of life forms, but the whole universal shell doesn't get dissolved into the Supreme.