Thomas Kelly Cheyne

“ Gradually, as the waters fell, Manu descended the mountain; he then sacrificed and prayed. In a year’s time his prayer was granted. A woman appeared, who called herself his daughter Idā (goddess of fertility) . It is neither stated, nor even hinted, that sin was the cause of the flood.
Another version occurs in the great epic, the Mahābhārata. The lacunae of the earlier story are here supplied. Manu, for instance, embarks with the seven “rishis” or wise men, and takes with him all kinds of seed. The fish announces himself as the God Brahman, and enables Manu to create both gods and men. ”

“ Shamash, who can cross it?’ For though the sea in the epic is no doubt the earth-circling ocean, it was hardly this in the myth from which the words were taken.” [18] And, what is still more important, we can understand better how, in the Gilgamesh epic (lines 115–116) , the gods, after cowering like dogs, go up to the “heaven of Ana.” They, too, fear the deluge, and only in the highest heaven can they feel themselves secure.
Such an explanation seems indispensable if the wide influence of the Babylonian form of the deluge-myth is to be accounted for. ”

“ As to (2) , nothing is more common than the story of a divine child cast into the sea in a box. [12] The ship-motive is also found, [13] but it is not too rash to assume that the box-motive is the earlier, and, in accordance with the parallels, that the hero of the deluge was originally a god or a demigod. The translation of the hero to be with the gods is a transparent modification of the original tradition. As to (3) , the original object of sending out the birds was probably not to find out where dry land was, but to use them as helpers in the work of re-creation. ”

“ And now as to the application of the celestial mythic theory to the early deluge-story. In the agricultural stage it was natural that men should take a deeper interest than before in the appearance of the sky, and especially of the sun and moon, and of the constellations, even though an Celestial myth
theory. astrological science or quasi-science would very slowly, if at all, grow up. ”

“ He, therefore, summoned the serpent or dragon who controlled the cosmic ocean, and had been subjugated at creation, to overwhelm the earth, after which the creator remade it better, [7] and the survivor and his family became the ancestors of a new human race. ”