DELUGE.
Tann, . ARAD., TURK. I Diluvio, . . . SP.
Ueberschwonroung, GE1{.
Tho deluge of the Old Testament was known to the Chaldreans, the Aryan Hindus, the Parsecs, the Hebrews, Christians, and Mahomedans. The last three relig,ionists have their account of it in the 6th to the 9th chapter of Genesis, in which it is related how the Almighty, in consequence of the wickedness of mankind, brought a flood of rain for forty days on the earth, and destroyed all bat Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives, -with pairs of all animals.
The Chaldeo-Babylonian narrative of the event is recorded in the great epic poem of the town of Uruk, three copies of which were made for the ' royal library, in the 8th century ii.c., liy order of Assur-bani-prd, king of Aasyria, from a very ancient copy of it in the sacerdotal library of tho town of Uruk, seemingly of the time of Abraham. The narrative follows with great exactness the same course as that of Genesis, which, in chapters vi. vii. viii. and ix., gives two different narrativcz. The cataclysm there noticed corresponds with the rising and overflow of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the middle of March to the end of May, and 26 days later the Jehovist makes Noah leave the ark.
I3erosus who had access to Babylonian records, says a god appeared to Xisuthros in a dream, prophesied a flood, and bade him bury sacred records in the City of the Sun at Sippara. The flood came, Xisuthros released birds to ascertain the state of the country, the occupants disem barked, and recovered the interred records.
The account which the Hindus have of the deluge is described in the Satapatha Brahmana of the Rig Veda, also with variations in the Maliabharata, in the Bhagavata Purana, in the Agni Parana, and in the Matsya Purana. The first of these does not indicate who was the person saved; the Mahabharata indicates I3rahma, and tho Puranas, Vishnu. The first of the Hindu accounts of this is found in the Satapatha. Bralimana. In it the 7th Menu Vaivasata one morning caught a fish, which told him of the coming flood, and, on the advice of the fish, he built a ship, which he attached to the horn of the fish, sailed over the northern mountain, and attached it to a tree till the waters subsided, when he found au living things destroyed.
The essence of the extract from the A,gni Parana is this When ocean quitted his bounds and caused universaldestrnction by I3rahma's command, Vaivaswata Menu (Noah), who dwelt near the Himalaya mountains, was giving water tone gods in the Kritmala river, when a small fish fell into his hand. A voice conunanded him to preserve it. The fish expanded to an enormous size. Menu, with his sons and their wives, and the sages, with the seed of every living thin,g, entered into a vessel, which was fastened to a horn on the bead of the fish, and thus they were preserved.' In this fable the grand northern chain is given as that to which the abode of the great patriarch of mankind approximated.
In the Puranas it is not 3fentt Vaivaaata, the 7th Menu, whom the divine fish saves from the deluge, but Satyavrata, the king of the Dasya, the man who loves justice and truth. The 13hagavata Purana says, In seven days, said Vishnu to Satrivrnta, the three worlds shall be submerged.' The West Iranians, now represented by the Par sees, had a knowledge of a deluge, in which Yinia, tho father of the human race, was warned by Ahuramazda to hedge in a square garden (vara), ' end cause the germs of men, beasts, and plants to enter it, in order to esmpe annihilation.
The Greeks bad two legends as to deluges, one connected with Ogyges, king of Bceotia, the other the Thessalian leg,end of Deucalion, who, by the advice of Prometheus, built a coffer, which floated at the mercy of the waves, and after ten days stranded on Mount Parnassus. Thc former seems connected with a rise of the lake Capais ; the latter seems to relate to the whole earth.
The great inundation recorded in the historic books of China, as having occurred a.c. 2357, in the reign of the emperor Yao, seems to have been occasioned by a rise of the Hoang-ho, a local event long subsequent to the fully historic periods of Egypt and Babylon. The date of the com pletion of the works undertaken by the minister Yu, to repair the damage done by this flood, lies between B.C. 2278 and 2062.