“The fact is fully proved both by the inscription and the work of Yu itself. The inscription was on the top of the mountain, Yu-lu-fun, in the district of Shen-shu-lu. Owing to its having become illegible in early times, it was removed to the top of an adjoining mountain.” ... “The former locality tallies exactly with the very interesting description of the empire in the time of Yu, which we find at the opening of the second book of the Shuking.” And Bunsen concludes, “It may be presumed after this verification, that in future nobody will seriously doubt the strictly epic description of the Shuking in the Canon of Yu,” as above.
So far from being impressed by the discovery of the monument on the top of the local mountain, as evidence of the local deluge, I can see in it only a memorial of the universal Deluge localised; and I cannot help considering it in connection with the worship of the tops of mountains, of which we shall find traces elsewhere (p. 244–46). Surely Baron Bunsen proves too much, and describes to us a deluge which must have been on the scale of the universal Deluge for all countries below the level of the mountain Yu-lu-fun. But, let it be said, that this description, so accordant with the description of the flood, was merely Chinese exaggeration. I here wish to point out two curious coincidences. What if we shall find works similar of those to Yao or Yu, ascribed to the original founders in Egypt and Cashmere? As in the first instance, I shall have to quote from Baron Bunsen himself, I am surprised that the coincidence should have escaped his observation.
“This is the account given of Menes [the first king of Egypt] by Herodotus—Menes, the first king of Egypt, as the priests informed me, protected Memphis by a dam against the river which ran towards the sandy chain of the Libyan Mountains. About 100 stadia above Memphis, he made an embankment against the bend of the river, which is on the south side. The effect of this was to dry up its ancient bed, as well as to force the stream between the two chains of mountains. This bend of the Nile, which is confined within the embankment walls, was very carefully attended to by the Persians, and repaired every year. For, if the river were to burst through its banks and overflow at this point, all Memphis would be in danger of being swamped. Menes, the oldest of their kings, having thus drained the tract of land by means of the dyke, built upon it the city now called Memphis, which lies in the mountain valley of Egypt. To the west and north he dug a lake round it, which communicates with the river—on the east it is bounded by the Nile—and afterwards erected in it a temple to Vulcan, a splendid edifice, deserving of especial notice” (ii. 48).
Bunsen fully endorses this account—“Herodotus, therefore, has recorded the following fact, that before the time of Menes the Nile overflowed the tract of country which he fixed upon as the site of his new metropolis” (p. 49 and p. 51). “There is no foundation whatever for Andriossy’s hypothesis that the story originated in the fact of the Nile having once run westward from the Pyramid mountains to Bahr Bela Ma (stream without water) and the Natron and Mareotic Lakes. Herodotus mentions an historical fact, and describes the work of an historical king. Andriossy’s hypothesis, if well founded, would belong to geology.” A sagacious and well-founded remark on the part of Baron Bunsen, but, as I submit, equally applicable to the work of Yao or Yu.
Merely noting that, if the above work was really carried out by Menes, and it would have been, from the point of view of Genesis, so carried out at a period contemporary with that of Yao or Yu—and, moreover, conceding to it in any case (I mean the work of Menes) a certain historical basis—let us dispassionately compare both with the passage from Klaproth, which I shall now extract. It is taken from the Sanscrit History of Cashmere.[55]
Klaproth says:—
“The Hindoo history of Kashmir assures us that the beautiful valley which forms this kingdom was originally a vast lake, called Satisaras. This account is also agreeable to the local traditions of this country. It was Kasy’apa, a holy person who, according to the Hindoo historians, caused the waters which covered this valley to escape. He was the son of Marichi, the son of Brahma. The Mahometan writers call him Kachef or Kacheb, and many of them pretend that he was a god, or a genius, and servant of Soliman, under whose orders he effected the drying up of Kashmir. To execute this task he made, near Baramanleh, a passage across the mountains, through which the water passed.... The territory, recovered in this way by Kasy’apa, was also peopled by this holy man, with the assistance of the superior gods, whom he brought for this purpose from heaven, at the commencement of the seventh manwantara, or that in which we are now.” Klaproth adds:—“We must therefore suppose that Kashmir has been subjected to the same periodical revolutions as the other parts of the world, if we would reconcile this date with the ordinary chronology.”[56]
It must, I think, be conceded that we have now before us three very similar accounts of works undertaken with reference to the reclamation of inundated land. All are undertaken by the first founders of their respective kingdoms—kingdoms widely separated and inhabited by people of diverse race—and all, more or less, contemporaneously. The Egyptians and Kashmerian have points in common as to their mode of reclamation, whilst the Chinese and Kashmerian have still more in common with the narrative in Genesis.[57]
Four solutions occur to me as possible. Either they were obscure or perverted traditions of the Deluge, or their works were traditions of similar works effected by Noah after the Deluge; or these works were actually carried out upon the precedent and model of similar works effected by Noah; or they were fortuitous coincidences.
Upon either of the three former conclusions, it will be shown that traditions of the Deluge, direct or indirect, exist both in Egypt and China, where it has been so confidently asserted that no tradition is to be found; and in the latter case, what is more especially to my purpose, a tradition which brings Yao into relation with Noah and Hoang-ti.