The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c8.101

c8.101

Now the Veda discloses, and all Hindu tradition harps upon, a father of the human race by the name of Manu, or Manush Pitar, "Father Manu." The word *manu* is nothing else than our own word "man": there is good reason to believe that this "original man" was set up as a kind of Adam or Noah in Indo-European times.² For a while the primitive mind seems to be well content with this eponymous man: later on, as I shall presently show, Manu is in his turn duly furnished with a well-established father, Vivasvant, about whose origin people have ceased to worry.