Manu, the first human, found a small fish in his wash water.
The fish begged protection from the larger fishes, in return for which it would save Manu.
Manu kept the fish safe, transferring it to larger and larger reservoirs as it grew, eventually taking it to the ocean.
The fish warned Manu of a coming deluge and told him to build a ship.
When the flood rose, the fish came, and Manu tied the craft to its horn.
The fish led him to a northern mountain and told Manu to tie the ship's rope to a tree to prevent it from drifting.
Manu, alone of all creatures, survived.
He made offerings of:
clarified butter
sour milk
whey
and curds.
From these, a woman arose, calling herself Manu's daughter.
Whatever blessings he invoked through her were granted him.
Through her, he generated this race. [Gaster, pp. 94-95; Kelsen, p. 128; Brinton, pp. 227-228]
Gaster, Theodor H. Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament, Harper & Row, New York, 1969. (Most of the flood stories in this work are taken from Frazer, 1919.)
Kelsen, Hans, 1943. "The Principle of Retribution in the Flood and Catastrophe Myths", in Dundes.
Dundes, Alan (ed.) The Flood Myth, University of California Press, Berkeley and London, 1988.
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View full-sizeDownload The flood (Genesis 6-9) -- The two flood stories in Genesis / Norman C. Habel -- The Chaldean account of the deluge / George Smith -- Some observations on the Assyro-Babylonian and Sumerian flood stories / Daniel Hämmerly-Dupuy -- The Atrahasis epic and its significance for our understanding of Genesis 1-9 / Tikva Frymer-Kensky -- The story of the flood in the light of comparative Semitic mythology / Eleanor Follansbee -- Stories of the creation and the flood / Leonard Woolley -- New light on Ovid's story of Philemon and Baucis / W.M. Calder -- The great flood / James George Frazer -- The principle of retribution in the flood and catastrophe myths / Hans Kelsen -- The flood myth as vesical dream / Géza Róheim -- The flood as male myth of creation / Alan Dundes -- An analysis of the deluge myth in Mesoamerica / Fernando Horcasitas -- Historical changes as reflected in South American Indian myths / Annamária Lammel -- Noah's ark revisited : on the myth-land connection in traditional Australian aboriginal thought / Erich Kolig -- Myth motifs in flood stories from the grassland of Cameroon / Emmi Kähler-Meyer -- The flood motif and the symbolism of rebirth in Filipino mythology / Francisco Demetrio -- The flood : three northern Kammu versions of the story of creation / Kristina Lindell, Jan-Ojvind Swahn, and Damrong Tayanin -- The deluge myth of the Bhils of central India / Wilhelm Koppers -- The Tamil flood myths and the Cankam legend / David Shulman -- Noah and the flood in Jewish legend / Louis Ginzberg -- The devil in the ark (AaTh825) / Francis Lee Utley -- Science and the universality of the flood / Don Cameron Allen -- Geology and orthodoxy : the case of Noah's flood in eighteenth-century thought / Rhoda Rappaport -- Charles Lyell and the Noachian deluge / James R. Moore -- Creationism : Genesis vs. geology / Stephen Jay Gould
The great sage Manu, son of Vivasvat, practiced austere fervor.
He stood on one leg with upraised arm, looking down unblinkingly, for 10,000 years.
While so engaged on the banks of the Chirini, a fish came to him and asked to be saved from larger fish.
Manu took the fish to a jar and, as the fish grew, from thence to a large pond, then to the river Ganga, then to the ocean.
Though large, the fish was pleasant and easy to carry.
Upon being released into the ocean, the fish told Manu that soon all terrestrial objects would be dissolved in the time of the purification.
It told him to build a strong ship with a cable attached and to embark with the seven sages (rishis) and certain seeds, and to then watch for the fish, since the waters could not be crossed without it. Manu embarked as enjoined and thought on the fish.
The fish, knowing his desire, came, and Manu fastened the ship's cable to its horn.
The fish dragged the ship through roiling waters for many years, at last bringing it to the highest peak of Himavat, which is still known as Naubandhana ("the Binding of the Ship").
The fish then revealed itself as Parjapati Brahma and said Manu shall create all living things and all things moving and fixed.
Manu performed a great act of austere fervor to clear his uncertainty and then began calling things into existence. [Frazer, pp. 185-187]
Frazer, Sir James G. Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, vol. 1, Macmillan & Co., London, 1919.
The heroic king Manu, son of the Sun, practiced austere fervor in Malaya and attained transcendent union with the Deity.
After a million years, Brahma bestowed on Manu a boon and asked him to choose it.
Manu asked for the power to preserve all existing things upon the dissolution of the universe.
Later, while offering oblations in his hermitage, a carp fell in his hands, which Manu preserved.
The fish grew and cried to Manu to preserve it, and Manu moved it to progressively larger vessels, eventually moving it to the river Ganga and then to the ocean.
When it filled the ocean, Manu recognized it as the god Janardana, or Brahma.
It told Manu that the end of the yuga was approaching, and soon all would be covered with water.
He was to preserve all creatures and plants aboard a ship which had been prepared.
It said that a hundred years of drought and famine would begin this day, which would be followed by fires from the sun and from underground that would consume the earth and the ether, destroying this world, the gods, and the planets.
Seven clouds from the steam of the fire will inundate the earth, and the three worlds will be reduced to one ocean.
Manu's ship alone will remain, fastened by a rope to the great fish's horn.
Having announced all this, the great being vanished.
The deluge occurred as stated; Janardana appeared in the form of a horned fish, and the serpent Ananta came in the form of a rope.
Manu, by contemplation, drew all creatures towards him and stowed them in the ship and, after making obeisance to Janardana, attached the ship to the fish's horn with the serpent-rope. [Frazer, pp. 188-190]
At the end of the past kalpa, the demon Hayagriva stole the sacred books from Brahma, and the whole human race became corrupt except the seven Nishis, and especially Satyavrata, the prince of a maritime region.
One day when he was bathing in a river, he was visited by a fish which craved protection and which he transferred to successively larger vessels as it grew.
At last Satyavrata recognized it as the god Vishnu, "The Lord of the Universe."
Vishnu told him that in seven days all the corrupt creatures will be destroyed by a deluge, but Satyavrata would be saved in a large vessel.
He was told to take aboard the miraculous vessel all kinds of medicinal herbs, food esculent grains, the seven Nishis and their wives, and pairs of brute animals.
After seven days, the oceans began to overflow the coasts, and constant rain began flooding the earth.
A large vessel floated in on the rising waters, and Satyavrata and the Nishis entered with their wives and cargo.
During the deluge, Vishnu preserved the ark by again taking the form of a giant fish and tying the ark to himself with a huge sea serpent.
When the waters subsided, he slew the demon who had stolen the holy books and communicated their contents to Satyavrata. [H. Miller, pp. 289-290;Howey, pp. 389-390; Frazer, pp. 191-193]
Miller, Hugh. The Testimony of the Rocks. Or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed. Gould and Lincoln, Boston, 1857. In MacRae, Andrew, n.d. Hugh Miller -- 19th-century creationist geologist,
One windy day, the sea flooded the port city of Dwaravati.
All its occupants perished except Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, and his brother Balarama, who were walking in the forests of Raivataka Hill.
Krishna left his brother alone.
Sesha, the serpent who supports the world, withdrew his energy from Balarama; in a jet of light, Balarama's spirit entered the sea, and his body fell over.
Krishna decided that tomorrow he would destroy the world for all its evils, and he went to sleep.
Jara the hunter passed by, mistook Krishna's foot for the face of a stag, and shot it.
The wound to Krishna's foot was slight, but Jara found Krishna dead.
He had saffron robes, four arms, and a jewel on his breast.
The waters still rose and soon lapped at Jara's feet.
Jara felt ashamed but helpless; he left deciding never to speak of the incident. [Buck, pp. 408-409]
Buck, William. Mahabharata, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973.
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View full-sizeDownload The Mahabharata is an Indian epic, in its original Sanskrit probably the largest ever composed. Combined with the Ramayana, it embodies the essence of the Indian cultural heritage.... The Mahabharata is an absorbing tale of a feud between two branches of a single Indian ruling family that culminates in a vast, cataclysmic battle.... (Buck) has retold the story so that the modern reader will not be discouraged from knowing and loving the stories as he did himself. - Focus on Asian Studies Newsletter.
