We have said elsewhere that the Great Flood had several meanings, and that it referred, as also does the “Fall,” to both spiritual and physical, both cosmic and terrestrial, events: as above, so it is below. The Ship or Ark—Navis—in short, being the symbol of the female [pg 148] generative Principle, is typified in the heavens by the Moon, and on Earth by the Womb; both being the vessels and bearers of the seeds of life and being, which the Sun, or Vishnu, the male Principle, vivifies and fructifies. The First Cosmic Flood refers to Primordial Creation, or the formation of Heaven and the Earths; in which case Chaos and the great Deep stand for the “Flood,” and the Moon for the “Mother,” from whom proceed all the life-germs.[321] But the Terrestrial Deluge and its story has also its dual application. In one case it has reference to that mystery when mankind was saved from utter destruction, by the mortal woman being made the receptacle of the human seed at the end of the Third Race,[322] and in the other to the real and historical Atlantean Submersion. In both cases the “Host”—or the Manu which saved the “seed”—is called Vaivasvata Manu. Hence the diversity between the Paurânic and other versions; while in the Shatapatha Brâhmana, Vaivasvata produces a daughter and begets from her the race of Manu—a reference to the first human Manushyas, who had to create women by Will (Kriyâshakti), before they were naturally born from the Hermaphrodites as an independent sex, and were, therefore, regarded as their creator's “daughters.” The Paurânic accounts make Idâ, or Ilâ, the wife of Budha (Wisdom). This version refers to the events of the Atlantean Flood, when Vaivasvata, the great Sage on Earth, saved the Fifth Root-Race from being destroyed along with the remnants of the Fourth.
This is shown very clearly in the Bhagavad Gîtâ, where Krishna is made to say:
The seven Great Rishis, the four preceding Manus, partaking of my essence, were born from my mind: from them sprang (was born) the human race and the world.[323]
Here the four preceding Manus, out of the seven, are the four [pg 149] Races[324] which have already lived, for Krishna belongs to the Fifth Race, his death having inaugurated the Kali Yuga. Thus Vaivasvata Manu, the son of Sûrya, the Sun, and the Saviour of our Race, is connected with the “Seed of Life,” both physically and spiritually. But, at present, while speaking of all, we have to concern ourselves only with the first two.
The “Deluge” is undeniably a “universal tradition.” “Glacial Periods” were numerous, and so were the “Deluges,” for various reasons. Stockwell and Croll enumerate some half-dozen Glacial Periods and subsequent Deluges—the earliest of all being dated by them 850,000, and the last about 100,000 years ago.[325] But which was our Deluge? Assuredly the former, the one which to this date remains recorded in the traditions of all the peoples from the remotest antiquity; the one that finally swept away the last peninsulas of Atlantis, beginning with Ruta and Daitya and ending with the comparatively small island mentioned by Plato. This is shown by the agreement of certain details in all the legends. It was the last of its gigantic character. The little deluge, the traces of which Baron Bunsen found in Central Asia, and which he places at about 10,000 years b.c., had nothing to do with either the semi-universal Deluge, or Noah's Flood—the latter being a purely mythical rendering of old traditions—nor even with the submersion of the last Atlantean island; or, at least, having with them only a moral connection.
Our Fifth Race—the non-initiated portions of it—hearing of many [pg 150] Deluges, have confused them, and now know of but one. This one altered the whole aspect of the Globe in its interchange, and shifting, of land and sea.
We may compare the tradition of the Peruvians that:
The Incas, seven in number, have repeopled the earth after the deluge.[326]
Humboldt mentions the Mexican version of the same legend, but confuses somewhat the details of the still-preserved legend concerning the American Noah. Nevertheless, the eminent Naturalist mentions twice seven companions and the “divine bird” which preceded the boat of the Aztecs, and thus makes fifteen elect instead of the seven and the fourteen. This was written probably under some involuntary reminiscence of Moses, who is said to have mentioned fifteen grandsons of Noah, who escaped with their grandsire. Then again Xisuthrus, the Chaldæan Noah, is saved and translated “alive” to heaven—like Enoch—with the seven Gods, the Kabirim, or the seven divine Titans. Again the Chinese Yao has seven figures which sail with him and which he will “animate” when he lands, and use for “human seed.” Osiris, when he enters the Ark, or Solar Boat, takes seven Rays with him, etc.
Sanchuniathon makes the Aletæ or Titans (the Kabirim) contemporary with Agruerus, the great Phœnician God—whom Faber sought to identify with Noah;[327] further, it is suspected that the name “Titan” is derived from Tit-Ain,—the “fountains of the chaotic abyss”[328] (Tit-Theus, or Tityus is the “divine deluge”); and thus the Titans, who are seven, are shown to be connected with the Flood and the seven Rishis saved by Vaivasvata Manu.[329]