But analogous to the double tradition of the Deluge in Assyria in the persons of Hoa and Nin; and, again, by a distinct channel of tradition in Xisuthrus (vide [pp. 208, 209]), as in China, there seems to have been a similar reduplication in China in their kings Hoang-ti and Yao or Yu.[54]
Now under this Yao or Yu, according to Chinese tradition (preserved, moreover, in the inscription of Yu), there happened the Deluge, or a Deluge. But as there is a confusion between Hoang-ti and Yao, so there is between Yao and Yu. Bunsen, however, admits these latter to be identical.
But although Bunsen asserts the authenticity of the inscription (as also does Klaproth), he utterly scouts the idea that it is a tradition of the Deluge, and maintains that it is itself evidence of a local inundation. Let us see.
“All the confusion or ignorance,” says Bunsen (398), “of the missionaries [in this matter], arises from their believing that this event referred to the Flood of Noah, which never reached this country.” And (p. 406), he says the inundation in the reign of Yao had just as much to do with Noah’s flood as the dams he created, and the canals he dug, had to do with the ark. This is said with reference to the “short Chinese account of it published by Klaproth,” viz.—
“In the sixty-first year of the reign of the Emperor Yao, serious mischief was caused by inundations. The emperor took counsel with the great men of the empire, who advised him to employ Kuen to drain off the water. Kuen was engaged upon it for nine years without success, and was condemned to be imprisoned for life. His son Yu was appointed in his stead. At the end of nineteen years he succeeded in stopping the inundation, and made a report to the emperor upon the subject.”
Let us turn, however, from this later gloss to the inscription itself, translated by Bunsen, p. 399—
“The Emperor said, ‘Oh thou Governor of the four mountains of the Empire!
The swelling flood is producing mischief;
It spreads itself far and wide;
It surrounds the hills, it overflows the dams;