Cross Cultural Accounts of the Flood PDF

International Journal of History 2023; 5(1): 132-135 E-ISSN: 2706-9117 P-ISSN: 2706-9109 www.historyjournal.net Great flood stories: Inter-religion similarities IJH 2023; 5(1): 132-135 Received: 14-03-2023 Accepted: 19-04-2023 Ankita Chand Ankita Chand Post Graduate Stu...

International Journal of History 2023; 5(1): 132-135 E-ISSN: 2706-9117 P-ISSN: 2706-9109 www.historyjournal.net Great flood stories: Inter-religion similarities IJH 2023; 5(1): 132-135 Received: 14-03-2023 Accepted: 19-04-2023 Ankita Chand Ankita Chand Post Graduate Student, Abstract Department of Ancient Indian The narrative of a Great Flood is found in various ancient religious texts and mythologies across History and Culture, different cultures of the world. These stories of great flood have religious significance and are University of Calcutta, Sahid generally considered as acts of divine retribution. Though the narratives vary in characters, plot, and Kshudiram Siksha Prangan, even their meaning in each religion or culture; but the common themes in all these stories are the Reformatory Street, Alipore, mighty flood sent by God to destroy the civilisation and giving salvation to few chosen ones who then Kolkata, West Bengal, India repopulate the earth with pious people. Despite variations in details, these narratives often convey universal themes such as divine judgment, redemption, rebirth, and the preservation of life. The present article explores the Great Flood stories in different religions, highlighting their similarities, differences, and underlying messages. These included the religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrian, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and the cultures like Mesopotamia, Greek, Chinese, and aboriginals of Australia. The study focused on close examination of the narratives and the comparison of their commonalities. Almost in all stories, the flood waters were described as the measure to cleanse the humanity and prepare for rebirth. Further, all these flood stories contain a cultural hero, who represents the human craving for life. Despite all these similarities, the consequences of the great floods varied from story to story based on prevailing local settings. All these flood stories have scientific base and could be very well interpreted as the outcome of geological phenomenon like glacier melting at the end of ice age leading to earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, etc. Keywords: Great flood stories, religion, culture, inter-religion similarities Introduction In the contemporary world, there are many religions and cultures which are dominant in different parts of the world. These religions and cultures have some similarities as well as differences in their mythologies and ideologies. On such similarities is the story of the great flood. The Great flood (commonly known as flood myth) is a saga in which a mighty flood is usually sent by a deity or deities to destroy the civilisation which had been polluted greatly. It is generally considered as an act of divine retribution. One such story can be traced in Hinduism from Matsya Purana where Lord Vishnu descends on earth in the form of fish. Similar versions of great flood are found in texts of other religions like the episode of Noah in Biblical story, Deucalion in Greek mythology, Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh, etc. If we analyse all these episodes, striking similarities can be found out amongst them. In all episodes, the flood waters were described as the measure to cleanse the humanity and prepare for rebirth. All these flood stories contain a cultural hero, who “represents the human craving for life.” These flood stories also have scientific rootsand can be interpreted through science. The flood stories can be explained by geological phenomenon like glacier melting at the end of ice age leading to earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, etc. The Hindu Flood Story in Matsya Purana In Hinduism, the Great Flood story is found in the ancient texts of the Matsya Purana (Ramachandra, 1935; Michael, 1995; Gupta, 2010) [8, 6, 2]. According to the story, the universe goes through cycles of creation and destruction, and the flood is a part of this cycle. Corresponding Author: Lord Vishnu assumes the form of a fish and warns the righteous king Manu about an Post Graduate Student, impending flood. Manu builds a massive boat and saves various animals, seeds, and sages. Department of Ancient Indian After the flood subsides, Manu helps in the restoration of life and is regarded as the History and Culture, progenitor of humanity. The Matsya Purana is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas in University of Calcutta, Sahid Kshudiram Siksha Prangan, Hinduism. It covers a vast area of knowledge in 291 chapters. It is one of the oldest and best Reformatory Street, Alipore, preserved puranic genre of Sanskrit literature. The story of great flood is found in the first Kolkata, West Bengal, India section of the Matsya Purana. ~ 132 ~ International Journal of History https://www.historyjournal.net The central characters of the great flood in Matsya Purana millennium BCE), Babylonian empire (2nd millennium were the Mastya (fish incarnation of Lord Vishnu) and BCE) and Assyrian empire (1st millennium BCE). All these Manu (the first man). In Sanskrit, human is known as empires have flood myths, share many common traits, but Manaba, which means the children of Manu. The story goes some elements are unique to particular myth. The oldest like this: - In Satya yuga, the Vaivasvata Manu left his flood story is also found in The Epic of Gilgamesh. The throne and engaged in severe austerities. One day when he story is recorded on 12 stone tablets. According to epic, was offering water to the departed souls (tarpana), a small Gilgamesh was a Sumerian king who ruled for 126 years. fish fell into his hand along with the water. Then the small The king Gilgamesh begin a search for immortality after the fish requested Manu not to put him back in the water as death of a friend. He then met an immortal man named bigger fish will kill him. In order to protect the life of the Utnapishtim, who was the parallel character of Manu, as he fish, the sage put it into a water jar. But this fish grew so big was granted immortality after building a ship called that the jar could not hold it. It was then thrown into a well Preserver of Life and survived the great flood. He also had but its size soon grew to be more then what a well could an ark on which he brought with him all his relatives as well accommodate. The sage noticed this and took it to the as all species of creatures in order to reform mankind and Ganges and found that these, too, proved in sufficient to repopulate the world. accommodate and finally it was taken to the ocean. To the Manu’s astonishment, the fish went on expanding until it The Greek Flood Story filled the vast expanse of the sea. The sage came to known In Greek mythology, Deucalion was a legend and the son that it was not an ordinary fish but something more than of Prometheus (the creator of humankind). His son was that. Then Manu prayed to God to let him know the true Hellen, the mythical ancestor of the Hellenic race. form of the fish. The fish soon showed itself to be According to Greek mythology, Zeus, the king of the Gods, Vasudeva. He addressed the Manu that in order to save was angry with the human population. Zeus told Deucalion humanity from the calamity he took the form of fish or to construct an ark for himself and his wife, Pyrrha. After matsya avatar. The matsya instructed the Manu to collect nine days of flood, the world was destroyed, and the ark seeds of all the plants, pairs of all animals of the world and rested on top of Mount Parnassus. When the waters receded, saptarishis (seven great Sages) with his family and bring Deucalion and his wife offered a sacrifice to Zeus to learn them all to the shore of the sea. God showed the him the how to repopulate the earth. Zeus told them to throw stones boat, which was fastened with the horn of the fish to avoid over their shoulders. The stones thrown by Deucalion capsizing. When the boat floating in the dark waters, became men and those thrown by Pyrrha became women. Vasudeva (God) in the form of fish addressed the Matsya Deucalion is considered as the equivalent of Noah. Purana to Manu. After the great flood, the boat reached the Malaya mountains. Manu’s family and saptarishi then The Native American Flood Stories repopulated the earth. Numerous Native American tribes have their own flood narratives. For example, the Ojibwe tribe tells of a great The Biblical Flood Story of Abrahamic Religion flood caused by a giant beaver. A single man, along with a Perhaps the most well-known flood story is found in the select group of animals, survives by seeking refuge on a Bible, specifically in the Book of Genesis (Hamilton, 1990; floating log. In the Pawnee tribe's story, a chief receives a Sarah, 2007) [3, 9]. According to this account, God becomes warning about a flood and builds a boat to save his family disillusioned with humanity's wickedness and chooses and animals. Noah, a righteous man, to build an ark (ship). Noah, along In the story of Aztec (a civilization that flourished in central with his family and representatives of every species, survive Mexico before the arrival of Europeans), Titlachahuan (God the flood and emerge as the ancestors of a new world. of rain) warned the man named Note and his wife Nena According to Book of Genesis in chapters 6-9 of Hebrew about upcoming coming flood. Nata and Nena hollowed out Bible, the God became angry as the entire population of a cypress tree, and Titlachahuan sealed them inside, telling mankind had become evil and wicked. Therefore, God them that they may only eat one ear of maize each. Here is decided to bring a flood to the earth to destroy everyone where the story is wildly different from others.The earth is except Noah and his family. God told Noah to prepare an flooded, but the people were not killed, instead, they were ark large enough for his family (which included his wife, turned into fish. After the flood, Nata and Nena three sons and their wives), pair of (male and female) all the disobeyed Titlachahuan and ate fish. So, Titlachahuan kind of creatures. When it started raining heavily, Noah turned them into dogs. The story ends with the world brought all of them to the ark. It rained for 40 days and 40 essentially starting all over again only this time with a nights. After reaching to a mountain for rest, Noah sent out hearty fish population and a couple of dogs (Berdan, 1982) a dove to find safe dry land but it returned empty hand.. Again, after seven days, he sent out another dove but it returned with an olive leaf, signalling that it was safe to go The Flood Story in Buddhism onto land. After repopulating them on the safe land, God The flood story in Buddhism is known as Samudda-vānija promised never to destroy the earth with a flood again and Jātaka. In a village once lived 1000 families of dishonest placed a rainbow in the sky as a sign of his promise. carpenters. These carpenters would take the money from villagers and never deliver any goods. To escape from the The Mesopotamian Flood Story wrath of villagers, they quickly needed to find a new place One of the earliest recorded accounts of a Great Flood to live. They built a ship and sailed until they found a comes from ancient Mesopotamia, specifically the Epic of beautiful island. The island was haunted by spirits. The Gilgamesh (Jeffrey, 2002). Mesopotamia (present-day spirit’s only rule was that every time a human needed to Iraq) has three major ancient empires; Sumerian empire (3rd defecate or urinate, they needed to dig a hole and cover it up ~ 133 ~ International Journal of History https://www.historyjournal.net when they were finished. The spirits wanted to keep their Thaen, the two deities taught the humans how to cultivate island clean and who can blame them. The carpenters loved rice and build house (Siriporn, 1996). the island and decided to have a big party to celebrate their new home. However, they became drunk on fermented The Egyptian Flood Story sugar cane and quickly ignored the rules and defecated and In Egyptian mythology, the flood story involves the urinated all over the island. The spirits were furious and God Ra and his daughter Sekhmet. Ra sent Sekhmet to decided to flood the island with a giant wave, on the full destroy part of humanity for their disrespect and moon. These 1000 carpenter families were ruled by two unfaithfulness which resulted in the Gods overturning wine men, one wise and one very foolish. While the wise jugs to simulate a great flood of blood. This is carpenter believed in spirits warning and told his people to commemorated as wine drinking festival in annual Nile build a ship for escaping in case of flood; the foolish flood. carpenter did not believed in the warning and told the people to stay, relax, and enjoy the party. On the day of the The Flood Story of Aboriginals in Australia full moon, as the spirits promised, a giant wave came up and The word ‘Aboriginal’ is used in Australia to describe the flooded the whole island. The wise man set sail with his original inhabitants. There is a popular folklore amongst people while the foolish man and his people died. aboriginals which is commonly known as story of Lizards vs. Platypuses. According to the folklore, the world became The Chinese Flood Story overpopulated with birds, reptiles, and other animals. In Chinese mythology, there are many stories on flood with Therefore, a meeting took place in the Blue Mountains to repopulation tale. One popular story says that, one day a find way to reduce the population. Tiger Snake (a large farmer managed to capture and imprison a thunder God. The venomous snake found in Australia) planned that birds and farmer warned his children to stay far away from the caged animals having good mobility should migrate to a new deity and went to nearby town. The children took pity on the country. The lizards, who knew about rainmaking, decided thunder God and released him. In gratitude the God warned to free the world of the platypuses, instructed all of their them there was going to be a great flood. He gave the families to perform the rain ceremony. The lizards fled to children a large gourd and told them that they would be safe mountain tops, before a flood covered the land below and from the waters as long as they are inside the gourd. Then destroying most of the world. The flood eventually ended the rains came. The brother and sister got inside the gourd. and there were no platypuses (Peters and Mika, 2017). They were the only people to survive the flood. Brother and sister as the only survivors, made the repopulation story a Inter-Religion Similarities little tricky as incest is a taboo in many cultures. However, The presence of Great Flood stories in different religions there were different endings to this story. In one version, the and cultures highlights the shared human experience of brother and sister were given a special “pass” from the struggle with the forces of nature and the search for heaven, like “It’s okay just this one time.” meaning in the face of disaster. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all recognize Abraham as their first prophet and The Zoroastrian Flood Story collectively known as Abrahamic religions. Noah’s ark is In Videdad (the religious book in Zoroastrianism), it is common in all Abrahamic religions. There are lot of mentioned that when the world had become overwhelmed similarities between the Manu flood story and the Noah’ by the constant multiplication of its immortal beings, Ahura ark. These similarities are: both Manu and Noah were Mazda (the God of Zoroastrianism, religion of ancient described as a virtuous individual. Both had three sons Persia, present-day Iran) decided to enlarge the earth for a before flood. Charma, Sharma and Yapeti were the sons of new beginning. He cautioned the king Yima that a great Manu; and Ham, Sham and Japheth were the sons of Noah. flood was coming to cleanse the world and the king had to In the Old Testament it is mentioned that God saved Noah protect himself and two of each species in his castle located by instructing him to build an ark. Similarly in Matsya on the top of the highest mountain. The flood came, and the Purana, Lord instructed Manu to built a boat and fill it with world, except for Yima's castle and its inhabitants, was animals and seeds to repopulate the earth. After the flood, destroyed. When the flood passed, Yima opened his doors Noah’ Ark was rested on the mountains of Ararat and and the world was inhabited again (Jacques, 2023). Manu’s boat was positioned at the top of the Malaya range of the mountains. Both Manu and Noah were said to The Thai Flood Story repopulated the earth and all the humans were their According to Thai mythology, Grandfather Sangkasa and descendants. Grandmother Sangkasi (Pu Sangkasa-Ya Sangkasi) were the The biblical flood story underscores the themes of first man and woman created by the Supreme God, Phu obedience, faith, and divine judgment, along with the Ruthua. As time passed, their descendants became wicked promise of a covenant between God and humanity. The and did not worship the Supreme God. The god got angry Hindu flood story emphasizes the cyclical nature of and punished them with a great flood. Fortunately, some existence, with the universe being created and destroyed in descendants survived because they fled into an enormous endless cycles. The Native American flood stories often magical gourd. After many months, the Supreme God had emphasize the significance of respecting nature and living in compassion on the humans and sent two deities Khun harmony with the environment While the stories may have Luang and Khun Lai from heaven to drill the enormous originated in different geographical and cultural contexts, gourd and take the surviving humans to a new land. The they continue to captivate and resonate with people around deities helped the surviving people and led them to the new the world, bridging the gaps between diverse religious land. When everyone arrived in the land called Mueang traditions and reminding us of our common humanity. ~ 134 ~ International Journal of History https://www.historyjournal.net Scientific Evidences of The Great Flood consequences of sea level rise due to the anthropogenic Recently the scientists and archaeologists have found the climate change will have series of disastrous impacts like evidences of the great flood. According to some scholars, increased flood risk and submergence, salinisation of the flood did happen during the last Ice Age (c.115000- surface and ground waters, and morphological change, such 11700 years ago). This might have inspired the stories of as erosion and wetland loss. It will cause unbelievable great flood all over the world and found in different damage to live and property. religious texts. According to two marine biologists Walter Pitman and William Ryan, nearly 12,000 years ago, the References Black Sea was a fresh water lake separated by Bosporus 1. Berdan F. The Aztecs of Central Mexico: An Imperial Strait (land strip) with Mediterranean Sea. The shore of the Society. Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology. New Black Sea was fertile and used by early farming societies. York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston; c1982. ISBN 978-0- When ice sheets of northern hemisphere started to melt, the 03-055736-1. sea level started to rise. It is said around 7600 years ago. 2. Gupta SV. Ch. 1.2.4 Time Measurements". In Hull, The water of Mediterranean Sea broke into the fresh water Robert; Osgood, Richard M. Jr.; Parisi, Jurgen; of Black Sea and the black sea level began to rise. This led Warlimont, Hans (eds.). Units of Measurement: Past, to the settlers moved to different higher grounds. This Present and Future. International System of Units. traumatic storymight have transmitted orally for about 3000 Springer Series in Materials Science: 122. Springer, years and then it was first recorded in Epic of the 2010, 1990, 7-8. Gilgamesh. The renowned archaeologist B. B. Lal in his 3. Hamilton VP. The Book of Genesis, Chapter 1-17, article on Manu’s flood had linked flood with the Eerdmans Publishing, p. 522. ISBN 0802825214. disappearance of river Saraswati through archaeological 4. Jacques, Duchesne-Guillemin. Zoroastrianism. evidences (Sharma, 2017). He wrote that Encyclopedia Britannica; c2023. archaeologically the flood of the Saraswati took place https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zoroastrianism. around 2,000 -1900 BCE this was exactly the time of the Accessed 14 May 2023. Manu’s flood. Prof. K S Valdiya said that Saraswati River 5. Jeffrey HT. The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. had nurtured human settlements of Harappan civilisation Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers; c2002;23:218-224, and un-sustained human developments resulted the river 238. ISBN 9780865165465. being reduced to a misfit river in which only flood waters 6. Michael W. Early Indian history: Linguistic and textual flow. All these arguments show us that 7000 years back due parameters. In George Erdosy (ed.). The Indo-Aryans to climatic and geological phenomena, the earth experienced of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture, and may changes might have led to great floods and migration Ethnicity. Boston; c1995. p. 136. of human population. 7. Peters MA, Mika CT. Aborigine, Indian, indigenous or first nations? Educational Philosophy and Theory. Conclusion 2017;49(13):1229-1234. DOI: 10.1080/ The myth and reality are the both sides of the same coin. 00131857.2017.1279879 Previously people believed that the stories presented in 8. Ramchandra VR. The Matsya Purana: A study, religious text were generally myths. But now with the help University of Madras: c1935, p. 140. of the science, we known that all the religious stories are not 9. Sarah H. Noah's flood kick-started European farming. just myths but have scientific explanations, and the morals Peer-reviewed publication, University of Exeter, behind them have great learnings to human society. Our Exeter, UK; c2007. ancestors wanted us known that God or nature is more 10. Sharma K. Manu’s flood real linked to Saraswati powerful than us. We can modify our surrounding to some deluge, DNA India; c2017. extent or to great extent for some time, but not all the times. 11. Siriporn NT. An analysis of the creation myths of the We are still very much under the control of the nature. In the Tai speaking peoples. Chulalongkorn University; stories of great flood, the qualities of the characters, the c1996. reasons of the floods, and their results appear to be similar. Because of the similarities between these stories, many historians believe there was actually a historical flood that likely covered the large part of the world. On the contrary, many scholars also consider the flood stories as a myth. Because through flood, life is destroyed and then built up again, very much like the creation narrative. The great flood story in Matsya Purana tells us that old order changes yielding place to new. From this episode, we learnt that the new creation began with mass destruction. This is the rule of the nature. Similar stories in different other cultures tell us that human began to migrate during last ice age due to the climatic and geological changes that were occurring throughout the world. Scientists believe that during this time the great flood might have occurred. The big question for future is that will there be another catastrophic flood? With increased deforestation, climate change and rising sea levels, it seems we are heading in that direction to create a new flood story of our very own time. Because, the ~ 135 ~