was water, fluid. Pra_g_apati, the lord of
creatures, having become wind, moved on it. He saw this
earth, and becoming a boar, he took it up. Becoming
Vi_s_vakarman, the maker of all things, he cleaned it. It
spread and became the widespread Earth, and this is why the
Earth is called P_ri_thivi, the widespread."

And we find in the _S_atapatha Brahma_n_a[143] the following slight
allusion at least to the tortoise myth:

"Pra_g_apati, assuming the form of a tortoise (Kurma),
brought forth all creatures. In so far as he brought them
forth, he made them (akarot), and because he made them he was
(called) tortoise (Kurma). A tortoise is (called) Ka_s_yapa,
and therefore all creatures are called Ka_s_yapa,
tortoise-like. He who was this tortoise (Kurma) was really
Aditya (the sun)."

One other allusion to something like a deluge,[144] important chiefly
on account of the name of Manu occurring in it, has been pointed out
in the Ka_th_aka (XI. 2), where this short sentence occurs: "The
waters cleaned this, Manu alone remained."

All this shows that ideas of a deluge, that is, of a submersion of the
earth by water and of its rescue through divine aid, were not
altogether unknown in the early traditions of India, while in later
times they were embodied in several of the Avataras of Vish_n_u.

When we examine the numerous accounts of a deluge among different
nations in almost every part of the world, we can easily perceive that
they do not refer to one single historical event, but to a natural
phenomenon repeated every year, namely, the deluge or flood of the
rainy season or the winter.[145]

This is nowhere clearer than in Babylon. Sir Henry Rawlinson was the
first to point out that the twelve cantos of the poem of Izdubar or
Nimrod refer to the twelve months of the year and the twelve
representative signs of the Zodiac. Dr. Haupt afterward pointed out
that Eabani, the wise bull-man in the second canto, corresponds to the
second month, Ijjar, April-May, represented in the Zodiac by the bull;
that the union between Eabani and Nimrod in the third canto
corresponds to the third month, Sivan, May-June, represented in the
Zodiac by the twins; that the sickness of Nimrod in the seventh canto
corresponds to the seventh month, Tishri, September-October, when the
sun begins to wane; and that the flood in the eleventh canto
corresponds to the eleventh month, Shaba_t_u, dedicated to t