Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c7.1207

c7.1207

Mention is made about a great flood in Gilgamish, as follows: Gilgamish set out on an adventurous journey to see his ancestor Utnāpiṣṭim to learn from him the means of obtaining eternal life. The gods had told this man about the secret of eternal life. At last Gilgamish reached an island and found out his ancestor and asked him about the secrets of eternal life. Utnāpiṣṭim said that he had lived in ‘Shoorappak’ and that he had been an ardent devotee of ‘Iya’ God. When the gods decided to destroy mankind by a great flood the God Iya called his devotee Utnāpiṣṭim and said to him “You, man of shoorappak, the son of Ūrbārtūtū: Demolish your house and build a ship. Leave off your wealth and search for your life. Cast away your property and save your life. Bring the seeds of every living thing into the ship. The ship you build should be according to measurements.” The rest of the story is like the story of the “Ark of Noah”. The scientists are of opinion that in pre-historic times the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa were one continent and that by earthquake or some other reason the south part of Europe had sunk down and water flowed in and thus the mediterranean sea came into existence. At a time when the far off regions of the earth were unknown, the people who escaped the flood imagined that the entire world had been submerged by the flood. It could be imagined that this story of the great flood passed on to posterity verbally and after so many generations it appeared in different regions in different languages in different forms.¹