The Arctic Home in the Vedas c14.s2.5

c14.s2.5

This story of the destruction of the original home by ice may well be compared with the story of deluge found in the Indian literature. The oldest of these accounts is contained in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (I, 8, 1, 1-10), and the same story is found, with modifications and additions, in the Mahābhārata (Vana-Parvan, Ch. 187), and in the Mātsya, the Bhāgavata and other Purāṇas. All these passages are collected and discussed by Muir in the first Volume of his Original Sanskrit Texts (3rd Ed. pp. 181-220); and it is unnecessary to examine them at any length in this place. We are concerned only with the Vedic version of the story and this appears in the above mentioned passage in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa. A fish is there represented as having fallen into the hands of Manu along with water brought for washing in the morning. The fish asked Manu to save him, and in return promised to rescue Manu from a flood (aughaḥ) that would sweep away (nirvoḍhā) all creatures. The Brāhmaṇa does not say when and where this conversation took place, nor describes the nature of the calamity more fully than that it was a flood. Manu preserved the fish first in a jar, then in a trench, and lastly, by carrying him to the ocean. The fish then warns Manu that in such and such a year (not definitely specified) the destructive flood will come, and advises him to construct a ship (nāvam) and embark in it when the flood would arise. Manu constructs the ship accordingly, and when the flood rises, embarks in it, fastens its cable (*pâsham*) to the fish’s horn and passes over (*ati-dudrâva*) to “ this northern mountain ” (*etam uttaram girim*) by which phrase the commentator understands the Himavat or the Himâlaya mountain to the north of India. The fish then asks Manu to fasten the ship to a tree, so that it may gradually descend, without going astray, along with the subsiding water; and Manu acts accordingly. We are told that it is on this account that the northern mountain has received the appellation of *Manor-ava-sarpaṇam* or ‘Manu’s descent.’ Manu was the only person thus saved from the deluge; and desirous of offspring he sacrificed with the *pâka-yajña*, and threw butter, milk, and curds as oblations into the waters. Thence in a year rose a woman named Iḍâ, and Manu living with her begot the offspring, which is called Manu’s off-spring (*prajâtiḥ*). This is the substance of the story as found in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, and the same incident is apparently referred to in the Atharva Veda Saṃhitâ (XIX, 39, 7-8), which says that the *kuṣṭha* plant was born on the very spot on the summit of the Himavat, the seat of the ‘Gliding down of the ship’ (*nâva-prabhraṃshanam*), the golden ship with golden tackle that moved through the heaven. In the Mahâbhârata version of the legend this peak of the Himâlaya is said to be known as Nau-bandhanam, but no further details regarding the place or time are given. The Mâtsya Purâṇa, however, mentions Malaya, or the Malabar, as the scene of Manu’s austerity, and in the Bhâgavata, Satyavrata, king of Draviḍa, is said to be the hero of the story. Muir has compared these accounts, and pointed out the differences between the oldest and the later versions of the story, showing how it was amplified or enlarged in later times. We are, however, concerned with the oldest account; and so far as it goes, it gives us no clue for determining the place whence Manu embarked in the ship. The deluge again appears to be one of water, and not of ice.