I now come to
HEA OR HOA.
“The third god of the first triad was Hea or Hoa, the Ana of Damascius. This appellation is perhaps best rendered into Greek by the Ὠη of Helladius, the name given to the mystic animal, half man half fish, which came up from the Persian Gulf to teach astronomy and letters to the first settlers on the Euphrates and Tigris. It is perhaps contained in the word by which Berosus designates this same creature—Oannes (Ὠáννης), which may be explained as Hoa-ana, or the god Hoa. There are no means of strictly determining the precise meaning of the word in Babylonian, but it is perhaps allowable to connect it provisionally with the Arabic Hiya, which is at once life and ‘a serpent,’ since, according to the best authority, ‘there are very strong grounds for connecting Hea or Hoa with the serpent of Scripture, and the paradisaical traditions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.’
“Hoa occupies in the first triad the position which in the classical mythology is filled by Poseidon or Neptune, and in some respects he corresponds to him. He is ‘the lord of the earth,’ just as Neptune is γαιήοχος; he is the ‘king of rivers,’ and he comes from the sea to teach the Babylonians, but he is never called the ‘lord of the sea.’ That title belongs to Nin or Ninip. Hoa is the lord of the abyss or of ‘the great deep,’ which does not seem to be the sea, but something distinct from it. His most important titles are those which invest him with the character so prominently brought out in Oë and Oannes, of the god of science and knowledge. He is ‘the intelligent guide,’ or, according to another interpretation, ‘the intelligent fish,’ ‘the teacher of mankind,’ ‘the lord of understanding.’ One of his emblems is the ‘wedge’ or ‘arrow-head,’ the essential element of cuneiform writing, which seems to be assigned to him as the inventor, or at least the patron, of the Chaldæan alphabet. Another is the serpent, which occupies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording benefactions, and which sometimes appears upon the cylinders. This symbol here, as elsewhere, is emblematic of superhuman knowledge—a record of the primeval belief that ‘the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field.’ The stellar name of Hoa was Kimmut.... The monuments do not contain much evidence of the early worship of Hoa. His name appears on a very ancient stone tablet brought from Mugheir (Ur), but otherwise his claim to be accounted one of the primeval gods must rest on the testimony of Berosus and Helladius, who represent him as known to the first settlers.... As Kimmut, Hoa was also the father of Nebo, whose functions bear a general resemblance to his own.”—Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, i. 152.[154]
I have said that I shall not rely too much on the resemblance of name, Hoa; but I must draw attention to the curious resemblance which lurks in the name “Aüs” to the words upon which the Vicomte D’Anselme has founded an argument in the appended note.[155]
In the above extract from Rawlinson, although Hoa is said not to be “the true fish-god,” yet he is called “the intelligent fish,” and is associated with that mystic animal, half man half fish, which came up from the Persian Gulf to teach astronomy and letters to the first settlers on Euphrates and Tigris.
Let us compare this information with the following “History of the Fish,” which the Abbé Gainet, i. 199, has translated from the Mahâbhârata. The same history has been translated from the Bhagavad Pourana by Sir W. Jones (“Asiatic Researches”). Indeed, as the Abbé Gainet argues, as this same history is found in all the religious poems of India, there is a certain security that it would not have been taken from the Hebrews.
I shall merely attempt to give the drift of the legend from the Abbé Gainet’s original translation of that portion of the Matysia Pourana which has reference to Noah:—
“The son of Vaivaswata (the sun) was a king, and a great sage, a prince of men, resembling Pradjapati in eclat. In his strength, splendour, prosperity, and above all, his penitence, Manou surpassed his father and his grandfather.[156]... One day a small fish approached him, and begged him to remove him from the water where he was, ‘because the great fish always eat the little fish—it is our eternal condition.’ Manou complies, and the fish promises eternal gratitude. After several such migrations, through the intervention of Manou, the fish at each removal increasing in bulk, he is at length launched in the ocean. The fish then holds this discourse with Manou:—‘Soon, oh blessed Manou, everything that is by nature fixed and stationary in the terrestrial world, will undergo a general immersion and a complete dissolution. This temporary immersion of the world is near at hand, and therefore it is that I announce to you to-day what you ought to do for your safety.’ He instructs him to build a strong and solid ship, and to enter it with the seven richis or sages.[157] He instructs him also to take with him all sorts of seeds, according to certain Brahminical indications. ‘And when you are in the vessel you will perceive me coming towards you, oh well-beloved of the saints, I will approach you with a horn on my head, by which you will recognise me.’ Manou did all that was prescribed to him by the fish, and the earth was submerged accordingly, as he had predicted. ‘Neither the earth, nor the sky, nor the intermediate space, was visible; all was water.’ ‘In the middle of the world thus submerged, O Prince of Bharatidians, were seen the seven richis or sages, Manou, and the fish. Thus, O King, did this fish cause the vessel to sail’ (with a rope tied to its horn), ‘for many years, without wearying, in this immensity of water.’ At length the ship was dragged by the fish on to the highest point of the Himalaya. ‘That is why the highest summit of the Himaran (Himalaya) was called Nanbundhanam, or the place to which the ship was attached, a name which it bears to this day—Sache cela, O Prince des Bharatidians.’ Then le gracieux, with placid gaze, thus addressed the richis—‘I am Brahma, the ancestor (l’ancestre) of all creatures. No one is greater than I. Under the form of a fish I came to save you from the terrors of death. From Manou, now, shall all creatures, with the gods, the demons (au souras), and mankind, be born.... This is the ancient and celebrated history which bears the name of the ‘History of the Fish.’”[158]
Here we seem to see what looks like the commencement of the legendary origin of the fish symbol; and here also we see it unmistakeably in connection with Noah. We have, moreover, seen the connection of Hoa with the fish.[159]