Page 535 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

316 SAMAGRA TILAK- 2 • THE ARCTIC HOMB
the Shatapatha Bri.hmat;ta (I, 8, 1, 1- 10) and the same story
is found, with modifications and additions, in the MahabhArata
( Vana-Parvan, Ch. 187 ), and in the Matsya, the Bhagavata and
other Purat;tas. 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 unnecessray 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 Shatapatha BrahmaJ!a. A fish is there represent-
ed 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 ( augha&)
that would sweep away ( nirvo¢hd ) all creatures. The Br§.hma~a
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 ( navam) 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 ( pasham ) to the fish's hom
and passes over ( ati-dudrava ) to " this northern mountain "
( etam uttarm girim ) by which phrase the commentator under-
stands the Himavat or the HimAlaya mountain to the north of
India. The fish then asks Manu to fasten the ship to a tree so
that it may gradually de cend, 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 bas received
the appellation of Manor-avasarpal'}am or ' Manu's descent'.
Manu was the only person thu aved from the deluge; and
desirous of offspring be sacrificed with the paka-yajna, and threw
butter, milk, and curds as oblation into the waters. Thence in a
year rose a woman named Ida, and Manu living with her
begot the off-spring, which is c~lled Manu' off-spring (prdjati&)
This is the substance of the story as found in the Shatapatha
Bnihma~a, and the same incident is apparently referred to in the
Atharva Veda Sarilhita (XIX,39, 7-8), which says that the ku~ht,ha
plant was born on the very spot on the summit of the Himavat,
the seat of the ' Gliding down of the ship' ( na va-prabhrainshanam)