ted by them for the regulation of time. Their calendar, both
civil and religious, was governed chiefly, not exclusively, by the
moon and the sun; and the motions of these luminaries were carefully
observed by them, and with such success that their determination of
the moon's synodical revolution, which was what they were principally
concerned with, is a much more correct one than the Greeks ever
achieved. They had a division of the ecliptic into twenty-seven and
twenty-eight parts, suggested evidently by the moon's period in days,
and seemingly their own; it was certainly borrowed by the Arabians."

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 Pura_n_as, and form in fact a very
familiar subject in the religious traditions of the people of India.

Three of the _Avataras_ 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 Brahma_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 Brahma_n_a, and you can then judge for yourselves
whether the similarities between it and the account in