Stories of A Drowning World

 

Introduction

“God ordered his man to build an ark big enough to accommodate a pair of all the animals of this world along with his wife, because the flood was coming.”

This story may feel familiar not only to you but millions of people of different religions and civilizations. The story of a ‘flood’ that wiped out the entire humanity could be heard in every part of this world although with some regional variations. The variation could be seen best in the difference of names of the ‘man’ ranging from Noah to Manu and many more. These stories are in existence from centuries and have a vast history. But the stories are not free from questions of scholars, theologians, geologists, historians, and even atheist. Why almost every ancient civilization mentions about flood? Are these stories just myth? Which story is the truest? How did these stories come into existence? And most importantly, was there any such flood? Answering these questions is difficult but not impossible. A revisit into the distant past with modern science and evaluation of these stories as more than just a myth could help in this search of answers.

Origin of the stories

The most popular flood story in the Indian Subcontinent is of Manu. As per Vedas, Manu was the first man and he is often regarded as the author of Manusmriti. As the story goes in, a fish or Matsya avatar of Lord Vishnu, warns Manu about a great flood. The fish further tells Manu to raise him and built a boat. Manu raises the fish which becomes too large in size and during the flood drives Manu’s boat to the top of a mountain. After the flood water recedes, Manu offers butter, sour milk, whey, and curds to the water and as a result of his sacrifices emerges a woman. She introduces herself as Manu’s daughter. Manu further performs rituals and sacrifices along with his daughter and generates a race which populates the Earth. This story is narrated in the Kanda I, adhyaya 8, brahmana 1 of the Satapatha Brahmana (SB) which is a commentary on the Yajurveda. The purpose of SB is to describe the Vedic rituals and legends behind them. Scholars have different opinions regarding the date of the text. Arthur Berriedale Keith states that linguistically, the Satapatha Brahmana belongs to the later part of the Brahmana period of Vedic Sanskrit (8th to 6th centuries BCE).[i] M. Witzel dates this text to the 7th-6th centuries BCE. According to Michael Witzel, we simply cannot date the SB in the third millennium BCE, as it has strong evidence of iron which emerged in India only by 1200/1000 BCE, and as SB is very close in its cultural, economic, socio-political, and philosophical development to the time of the Buddha, who lived around the middle of the first millennium BCE.[ii]

A similar story could be found in the Bible. The Book of Genesis, Chapter 6-8 describes that the humans were getting wicked and the Lord decided to wipe the humans and all other creatures from the face of earth. But Lord saw Noah as a righteous man and told him that a great flood was going to come. Lord also ordered Noah to build an ark big enough to accommodate Noah’s family and a pair of each creature. As predicted the flood came and wiped all the creature except those on Noah’s ark. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountain and slowly the water receded. And later Noah’s family and descendant populated the Earth. Most Biblical scholars believe the Book of Genesis was written around 1450 BC to 1400 BC.[iii]

Although the stories of Manu and Noah seems to be written at around the same time there are stories much older than these two. The Epic of Gilgamesh an epic poem which is cited as the earliest pieces of literature and a part of great Mesopotamian civilization narrates a flood story similar to the previous ones. The legendary King Gilgamesh after the death of his friend Enkidu decides to meet his ancestor Utnapishtim who lives on a mountain. During their meeting Gilgamesh asks Utnapishtim about the reason of his immortality in reply of which the later narrates his story. He was king of Shuruppak, a city on the banks of river Euphrates. There a secret meeting of Gods take place in which Enlil orders a flood to destroy humankind. But another God, Ea foretells Utnapishtim about the flood and suggests him to make a boat and take his family with him. The boat gets ready in seven days and when the flood comes the boat floats to the top of a mountain. After the water recedes, he performs a sacrifice but Enlil gets angry when he comes to know about the boat. But soon he forgives Utnapishtim and his wife and grants them immortality. The poem is written on Twelve Old Babylonian tablets in cuneiform. The actual tablets date back to around 650 B.C. and are obviously not originals since fragments of the flood story have been found on tablets dated around 2,000 B.C.[iv]

The Great Flood of China pushes the dates even further to 2300-2200 BC. But this Chinese story is completely different from the previous ones. As the story goes, legendary Emperor Yu was a generous man, known for his virtues. His father failed to control the flood and thus Yu learned new methods of leading water away. He tamed the flooded Yellow River by redirecting its channels. He also laid the foundation for the Xia dynasty. Although the previous stories are most known and popular there are several other flood stories with some radical and surprising twists. In the Aztec folklore, Titlacauan warns a couple Nata and Nena about the flood. But instead of any boat they hollow a cypress tree to hide inside it during the flood. In the Greek mythology, Zeus tells Deucalion to construct an ark for him and his wife. After the water recedes Zeus tells them a way to repopulate the world. They both throw stones over their shoulders which turns into humans. In the Norse mythology, the flood comes not of water but blood. Bergelmir and his wife build an ark and repopulates the earth.

Finding the truth

The first question that arises is that why almost each civilization and religion have flood stories. But the answer is simple. Most of the ancient cities were situated near rivers and there is a huge possibility that the inhabitants of these cities had faced the flood catastrophe. Does this mean that the stories are true? Now this is difficult question but even if the stories are true it is easy to conclude that the details in them are heavily exaggerated. To answer this question, it is important to know whether the stories are independent of each other or not.

Table I: World Flood Myth[v]

Event                                                                 Percent that Contain

1. Catastrophe a flood only, not other type                   95%

2. Was flood global?                                                      95%

3. A favoured family saved?                                          88%

4. Was the geography local?                                          82%

5. Was the rainbow mentioned?                                     75%

6. Did animals play any part?                                         73%

7. Was survival due to a boat?                                        70%

8. Were animals also saved?                                           67%

9. Was flood due to wickedness of mankind?                66%

10. Were they forewarned?                                             66%

11. Did survivors land on a mountain?                           57%

12. Were birds sent out?                                                  35%

13. Did survivors offer a sacrifice?                                 13%

14. Were specifically eight persons saved?                        9%

 

John Morris planned out the above table after collecting more than 200 of these stories, originally reported by various missionaries, anthropologists, and ethnologists. The table is enough to show how much similar all these stories are, but concluding that these stories are dependent of each other and talking about a single great flood is tough. Among all the stories only that of Noah and Utnapishtim seems dependent and may talk about the same flood. A popular theory, also points that the Hebrews were influenced from the Babylonians, but no conclusive evidence supports this theory.

The other approach is to evaluate all the stories independently. In 1929, archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley was digging at Ur where he found many artefacts. But after going a little deeper the artefacts stopped appearing, there was only virgin soil which was not as deeper as expected, this evidence made him convince that there Mesopotamia had faced a flood. In his own words,

I was convinced of what it all meant; but I wanted to see whether others would come to the same conclusion. So I brought up two of my staff and, after pointing out the facts, asked for their conclusions. They did not know what to say. My wife came along and looked and was asked the same question, and she turned away remarking casually, "Well, of course, it's the Flood."[vi]

Although Woolley connected the evidences with the mythical flood, he also pointed out that there was no ark.

In another research, Chinese Geologists found evidence which could support the Great Flood of China. They found outburst flood sediments in the lower Jishi Gorge and in Guanting Basin, which are near the Yellow River. To date the flood, they collected the carbon samples and dated it to 1920 BC. In their own words,

We argue that this event and its aftermath likely would have survived in the collective memories of these societies for generations, eventually becoming formalized in the received accounts of the Great Flood in the first millennium BCE. In fact, early texts such as the Shujing and Shiji even record that a place called Jishi (the same characters as the gorge where the outburst flood began) was where Yu began his dredging of the Yellow River; whether this is a coincidence will require further historical geographical research.[vii]

But it is also important to note that the mythical flood was said to come not in 1920 BC but earlier than that. And if the flood had come in 1920 BC, then the founding date of the Xia dynasty would also be affected.

Coming to the next story of that is of Manu, the direct evidences are not yet founded. And it is also difficult to find the exact location of the flood mentioned in Satpatha Brahmana. But if we connect this ancient story to our ancient civilization, the answer could be found. The decline of Indus Civilization or Harappan Civilization is still a matter of debate. But archaeologist George F. Dales proposes a theory which talks about flood. The presence of water-deposited silts at Mohenjo-Daro had been recognized by early workers at the site as an indication that floods had played a role in the city’s history.[viii] A hydrologist Robert L. Raikes also proposes a similar theory. His research points out an area near Sehwan, some 90-miles downstream from Mohenjo-Daro, as the most probable area of tectonic disturbance affecting the city.[ix] But even if these evidences are enough to conclude that flood played a role in decline of this ancient civilization, finding a relation of with the ancient story of flood is still impossible.

Conclusion

All these flood stories made one question the human conscience. Fact or myth, these stories have played an important role in the evolution of man-nature relationship. It is difficult to know the truth behind these stories and modern scientific researches may have collect many evidences but these are not enough. But this does not mean that these stories are senseless for they are living with humans from ancient times. The similarity between these stories proves that we humans are not so different from each other. And even if there was no such flood in the past the danger of one in future is growing with the advancements of modern industrial developments. These stories could be an alarm for us to think and realize what nature can do to wipe off the wicked humans. And maybe in the future we might not have any Manu or Noah or Utnapishtim.

 

References

    

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[i] Keith, Arthur Berriedale. The Aitareya Aranyaka. Oxford: Clarendon press, 1909.

[ii] Erdosy, George. The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2012.

[iii] Ratner, Paul. “How Old Is the Bible?” Big Think, September 25, 2016. https://bigthink.com/thinking/how-old-is-the-bible/.

[iv] Lorey, Frank. “The Flood of Noah and the Flood of Gilgamesh.” The Institute for Creation Research, March 1, 1997. https://www.icr.org/article/noah-flood-gilgamesh/.

[v] Morris, John. “Why Does Nearly Every Culture Have a Tradition of a Global Flood?” The Institute for Creation Research, September 1, 2001. https://www.icr.org/article/why-does-nearly-every-culture-have-tradition-globa.

[vi] Woolley, Leonard. “The Flood.” The South African Archaeological Bulletin 8, no. 30 (1953).

[vii] Wu, Qinglong, Zhijun Zhao, Li Liu, Darryl E. Granger, Hui Wang, David J. Cohen, Xiaohong Wu, et al. “Outburst Flood at 1920 BCE Supports Historicity of China’s Great Flood and the Xia Dynasty.” Science 353, no. 6299 (2016).

[viii] Dales, George F. “THE DECLINE OF THE HARAPPANS.” Scientific American 214, no. 5 (1966).

[ix] Ibid.

Author:

Devvrat Sharma
3rd Year History Hons. Student
Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi