Page 536 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE A VESTIC EVJDENCE 317

the golden ship with . golden tackle that moved through the
heaven. In the MahAbharata version of the legend this peak of
the Himalaya is said to be known as Nau-bandhanam, but no
further details regarding the place or time are given. The Matsya
Pur~~a, however, mentions Malaya, or the Malabar, as the
scene of Manu's austerity, and in the Bhagavata, Satyavrata,
king of Dravi~a, is said to be the hero of the story. Muir has
compared these accounts, and pointed out the differences between
the oldest and the later versions of the story, showing how it
was amplified or enlarged in later times. We are, however,
concerned with the oldest account; and so far as it goes, it
gives us no clue for determining the place whence Manu embark-
ed in the ship. The deluge again appears to be one of water,
and not of ice and snow as described in the Avesta. Nevertheless
it seems that the Indian story of deluge refers to the same cata-
strophe as is described in the Avesta and not to any local deluge
of water or rain. For though the Shatapatha Brahma~ mentions
only a flood ( augha!J ), the word prd/eya, which Pa~.tini ( VII, 3,
2 ) derives from pralaya ( a deluge ), signifies ' snow ', ' frost ',
or ' ice ' in the later Sanskrit literature. This indicates that the
connection of ice with the deluge was not originally unknown to
the Indians, though in later times it seems to have been entirely
overlooked. Geology informs us that every Glacial epoch is
characterised by extensive inundation of the land with waters
brought down by great rivers flowing from the glaciated districts,
and carrying an amount of sand or mud along with them. The
word augha!J, or a flood in the Shatapatha Bdhma!lll may,
therefore, be taken to refer to such sweeping floods flowing from
. the glaciated districts, and we may suppose Manu to have been
carried along one of these in a ship guided by the fish to the
sides of the Hi~laya mountain. In short, it is not necessary to
hold that the account in the Shatapatha BrahmaJ!a refers to the
water-deluge pure and simple, whatever the later Pud~as may
say; and if so, we can regard the Brahmanic account of deluge
as but a different version of the Avestic deluge of ice. It was once
suggested that the idea of deluge may have been introduced into
India from an exclusively Semitic source; but this theory is long
. ago abandoned by scholars, as the story of the deluge is found
in such an ancient book as the Shatapatha Brahm.aJ!a, the
date of which has now been ascertained to be not later than