that the divine preserver is revealed not as Brahmâ, but Vishnu, a change which could have taken place only after the schism which divided Brahmanism into several sects. One of these had adopted the rather insignificant solar god of the Rig-Veda and invested him with supremacy, as the ever watchful preserver and savior of all creation.

The Matsya Purâna introduces Manu as "a heroic king," the patient son of the Sun, who had attained. so high a degree of holiness that he abdicated in favor of his son (name not given), in order to devote himself wholly to ascetic practices, which he kept up with intense fervor during a million years (!) "in a certain region of Malaya" (Malabar). Once, as Manu was offering an oblation to the Pitris in his hermitage, a small fish fell on his hands along with some water. Then follows the incident we are already familiar with: the fish is successively transferred into a jar, into a large pitcher, into a well, into a lake, into the Ganges, and lastly is thrown into the ocean.

"When he filled the entire ocean, Manu said, in terror: Thou art some god, or thou art VÂSUDEVA. How can any one else be like this? Reverence be to thee, lord of the world.' Thus addressed, the divine JANARDANA, 1 in the form of a fish, replied: Thou hast well spoken and hast rightly known me. In a short time the earth, with its mountains, groves, and forests, shall be submerged in the waters. This ship has been constructed by the company of all the gods for the preservation of the vast host of living creatures. Embarking in it all living creatures, both those engendered from moisture and from eggs, as well as the viviparous, and plants, preserve them from calamity. When, driven by the blasts at the end of the yuga, the ship is swept along, thou shalt bind it to this horn of mine.

1 Two of Vishnu's "thousand names."

Then, at the close of the dissolution, thou shalt be the PRAJAPATI (lord of creatures,' in this case creator') of this world, fixed and moving."

By "all living things" are certainly meant specimens of each kind, as no ship could have been imagined large enough to contain all individual living things existing, just as "plants" undoubtedly also signifies specimens, or rather the seeds of plants. As for human beings, only one holy Rishi is named by Vishnu as Manu's companion. On being questioned more closely, the god explains that the great deluge will be preceded by a universal conflagration which, following on a hundred years of drought and famine, shall consume the world so the earth shall become as ashes and the æther itself shall be scorched with heat. Even the gods and the planets shall be destroyed. Of the former only Brahmâ is to be preserved, of the latter the sun and moon. The Vedas also are to be saved in the ship. An important point on which the story of the Matsya Purâna differs from the Chaldean original is that the great cataclysm is not sent in punishment, but occurs as the ending of one yuga or age of the world, ushering in the beginning of another, every such change of period, in the Brahmanic belief, being marked by the destruction and resurrection of the universe. The narrative ends rather abruptly:

“When the time announced by Vâsudeva had arrived, the deluge took place in that very manner. Then the god appeared in the shape of a horned fish; the serpent ANANTA1 came to Manu in the shape He then attached the ship to the fish's horn by

of a rope.

5. This same absence of moral point distinguishes

1 Ananta-"the Endless"; the symbol of eternity.

the elaborate and dramatic relation in the Bhagavata Purâna.' There also occurs at the end of one of the great ages "an occasional dissolution of the universe," during which the world is submerged in the ocean. But another and, if possible, greater disaster befalls gods and men: the Vedas are stolen and carried away by "the strong HAYAGRIVA,” a demon of the race of the giant DAITYAS, who are forever warring against the gods and marring their good works, and it is on discovering this deed that Vishnu takes the form of a fish. The human hero of the deluge-incident is not Manu, but "a certain great royal Rishi," called SATYAVRATA, the righteous King of Dravida, a devoted worshipper of Vishnu, given to the usual austere practices, and who, in the then following new era, is born again as Manu, son of Vivasvat.

"Once, as in the river Kritamâlâ (a river of the country of Dravida, or Malabar), he was offering the oblation of water to the Pitris, a fish came with the water in the hollow of his hands."

Here follows the request for protection, the transfer of the growing fish from one receptacle to another, and the recognition of him by Manu as the disguised god Vishnu. To the enquiry why he had assumed this disguise, the god replies:

"On the seventh day after this the three worlds shall sink beneath the ocean of the dissolution.2 When the universe is dissolved in that

1 Bhagavata—" the Blessed One"; one of the most sacred names of Vishnu. This Purâna is specially devoted to the glorification of the god and his various incarnations or Avatârs.

2 Compare Genesis vii., 4: it to rain upon the earth

made will I destroy.

"For yet seven days, and I will cause and every living substance that I have 10. And it came to pass after seven days

ocean, a large ship, sent by me, shall come to thee. Taking with thee the plants and various seeds, surrounded by the seven Rishis, and attended by all existences, thou shalt embark on the great ship and shalt, without alarm, move over the dark ocean. When the ship shall be vehemently shaken by the tempestuous wind, fasten it by the great serpent to my horn, for I shall be near."

Everything happens as predicted, and when "the dissolution" is over, Vishnu slays Hayagrîva and recovers the Veda, while “King Satyavrata, master of all knowledge, sacred and profane, became, by favor of Vishnu, the son of Vivasvat, the Manu of this era."

This is the so-called MATSYA-AVATAR, or FishIncarnation of Vishnu-one of ten disguises assumed on different critical occasions by the Preserver, to save the world from some great danger, and one of which is yet to come, at the end of the present yuga, The Agni-Purâna's story, though somewhat more concisely told, is so exactly the same, with no detail added or altered, as not to require quotation.

or era.

6. The great French Sanskritist, Eugène Burnouf, who edited and translated the Bhagavata-Purâna, was familiar with all these versions, excepting only the oldest, that of the Shatapatha-Brâhmana, which was not known in his time as yet, and he is very positive about the kernel of the story having been imported from Babylon. His only mistake lies in assigning this importation to late historical times, while there is so much, both in the subject-matter and in sundry particulars, that points to an infinitely earlier intercourse, in pre-Aryan times, between the kindred people of Dravidian India and archaïc or