There is one more argument which has been adduced in support of a Babylonian, or, at all events, a Semitic influence to be discovered in Vedic literature which we must shortly examine. It refers to the story of the _Deluge_.
That story, as you know, has been traced in the traditions of many races, which could not well have borrowed it from one another; and it was rather a surprise that no allusion even to a local deluge should occur in any of the Vedic hymns, particularly as very elaborate accounts of different kinds of deluges are found in the later Epic poems, and in the still later Purâ_n_as, and form in fact a very familiar subject in the religious traditions of the people of India.
Three of the _Avatâras_ or incarnations of Vish_n_u are connected with a deluge, that of the _Fish_, that of the _Tortoise_, and that of the _Boar_, Vish_n_u in each case rescuing mankind from destruction by water, by assuming the form of a fish, or a tortoise, or a boar.
This being so, it seemed a very natural conclusion to make that, as there was no mention of a deluge in the most ancient literature of India, that legend had penetrated into India from without at a later time.
When, however, the Vedic literature became more generally known, stories of a deluge were discovered, if not in the hymns, at least in the prose writings, belonging to the second period, commonly called the Brâhma_n_a period. Not only the story of Manu and the _Fish_, but the stories of the _Tortoise_ and of the _Boar_ also, were met with there in a more or less complete form, and with this discovery the idea of a foreign importation lost much of its plausibility. I shall read you at least one of these accounts of a Deluge which is found in the _S_atapatha Brâhma_n_a, and you can then judge for yourselves whether the similarities between it and the account in Genesis are really such as to require, nay as to admit, the hypothesis that the Hindus borrowed their account of the Deluge from their nearest Semitic neighbors.
We read in the _S_atapatha Brâhma_n_a I. 8, 1:
"In the morning they brought water to Manu for washing, as they bring it even now for washing our hands.
"While he was thus washing, a fish came into his hands.