Matsya and the Great Flood

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 1 CE–500 CE

Country or Culture: India

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

Matsya and the Great Flood is an important story in Hindu mythology. It describes the end of the world in a cataclysmic deluge and the salvation of life by the efforts of an honest man acting on the instructions of a deity manifested in the form of a giant fish.

Manu, depicted either as a great king or the only honest man, is bathing in a river when he accidentally catches a very small fish with a single horn growing from its head. The unusual fish, named Matsya, has the magical ability to speak. He asks Manu to protect him from the bigger fish in the river. In exchange, Matsya promises to save Manu from an impending flood.

Manu takes the small horned fish home and puts him in a bowl of water. The fish is happy there, but he soon outgrows it. Manu then puts him in a pitcher of water; this works fine for a time, until it becomes too small. Next, Manu puts the fish in a well, but Matsya soon grows too big for it. He then releases the fish into a pond, where Matsya continues to expand in size. Matsya is freed into the Ganges River, but he outgrows even that. Finally, Manu helps Matsya into the ocean, and the fish grows to be very huge indeed.

Manu regularly visits Matsya in the ocean. One day when Manu is meeting with him, Matsya says that the end of the world is near. He instructs Manu to build a great ship with a strong rope attached to the bow and to gather all the species of the world. Manu has a moment of doubt, wondering if the giant horned fish might be a demon trying to trick him. Matsya then reveals himself to be a deity, either Visnu (Vishnu) or Brahmā, depending on the version of the tale.

Heeding Matsya’s advice, Manu is ready with a huge ship stocked with all the species of the world by the time the deluge begins. As the waters rise and flood the earth, Manu’s ship floats safely on the waves. Matsya tells Manu to fasten the rope to his horn, and the gigantic fish pulls the ship to safety. Eventually, the mighty fish drags the boat to the highest mountain in the world, and Manu ties the rope to a tree on its peak, securely anchoring the ship until the storm ends.

When the waters recede, the species on Manu’s boat repopulate the earth with their various kinds. Manu thanks Matsya for saving the world, but he says that he wishes there were a way to continue the survival of humanity. Matsya miraculously provides Manu with a wife, and they have children from whom all the people of the new world are descended.

SIGNIFICANCE

Apocalyptic flood myths are found throughout the world. The best known of these to a Western audience is the Jewish story of Noah’s Ark; the South Asian tale of Matsya and the Great Flood is its Hindu equivalent. In all myths of this kind, a righteous man is chosen by a benevolent deity to build a boat capable of sheltering the animals of the world from the storm’s destructive powers. By following the god’s orders, the chosen man is able to save the species of the world and allow them to regenerate when the flood waters recede.

The tale appears in various Hindu religious texts. These include the late Vedic Śatapatha Brāhmana, written in its final form in the fourth century BCE; the Mahābhārata epic, which was finalized in the Gupta period around 300 CE; and the Bhāgavata Purāna and Matsya Purāna from around 500 CE. Some scholars speculate that the myth actually came into popular circulation much earlier, since its principal human protagonist, Manu, is mentioned in the Rig Veda. The Rig Veda was compiled around 1500 BCE and reflects materials that date back still further into Indian prehistory.

There are variations in all of these retellings of the story. One key difference between versions of the myth has bolstered the argument that it is in fact a very ancient tale. In some variants of the story, the giant fish Matsya is revealed to be Visnu, the world preserver. In others, he is identified with Brahmā, the world creator. This may indicate that there was an older version of the myth in which the supernatural fish was not identified with a god, and that the detail that Matsya is a manifestation of either Brahmā or Visnu—specifically the first avatar of Visnu—was added much later.

Though the story’s history is not fully understood, it is clearly very important to the overall body of Hindu mythology. In Hindu cosmology, time is circular rather than linear. Worlds are created and destroyed, then created again, in an endless pattern. One common measurement of mythological time according to the Mahābhārata and later texts is an eon, called a kalpa. This is stated to be a day in the life of Brahmā, or equivalent to 4.32 billion years.

One kalpa is divided into fourteen manvantaras, or ages of Manu. In each manvantara, the world is repopulated through the heroic efforts of Manu, acting with the assistance of the benevolent giant fish Matsya. Each world eventually becomes corrupt and is destroyed by the great flood, and the manvantara cycle starts over again. The myth of Matsya and the Great Flood is therefore instrumental in shaping the Hindu perception of cosmological time.

The myth’s human protagonist, Manu, is considered to be the ancestor of all living people. He is also credited with authoring the Mānava Dharma Śāstra, the most important Hindu text outlining laws and duties. As such, Manu is held to be not only the progenitor of humanity, but also of legal order. In each age, and on the advice of Matsya, Manu saves life on earth, regenerates humankind, and gives his descendents the gift of civilization.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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