MANU—OANNES—VENUS 271 
The vagaries of Solar Mythology can be safely neglected. 
But the story, derived perhaps from Semitic sources, of fish 
incarnation and of the adventures of Manu, is deserving of 
fuller consideration. 
According to one variant of the legend, Vishnu, in the form 
of a small fish, approached Manu to beg protection against the 
larger fish ; whereupon he was placed securely in a water-jar, 
but in a single night outgrew the jar. Manu then tried a pond, 
and next the Ganges, but similar increases in size compelled 
him to remove the fish to the sea. Upon this the god made 
himself known, warned the sage of the coming of the Flood 
within seven ‘days, and bade him build a ship and furnish it 
more or less on the lines of the Jewish Ark, only among the 
passengers were to be seven Sages ! 
In accordance with his promise, Vishnu, still in fish shape, 
reappeared on the subsidence of the waters, and with a rope 
attached to his horn towed the Ark to the Northern Mountain, 
where it grounded.! 
Instances of impiscation (so to speak) appear not infre- 
quently in my pages. Oannes, with head and tail of fish, but 
also with human face and feet ; Dagon, “‘ Sea-monster, upward 
man and downward fish”’; Atargatis, or Derceto, ‘‘ with face 
of woman but body of fish’ ; Venus, turning herself and Cupid 
—and also, as one account adds, her lover Mars—into fishes to 
escape the pursuit of the Giants ;—all these can be grouped 
with other myths. 
These tell us that Asia was saved by a fish and is supported 
by a tortoise, that Polynesia was brought up, itself a fish, on 
a fish-hook out of the primeval ocean, or that America was 
rescued from the depths of diluvian chaos by a turtle. Well 
may Robinson conclude, “Since in the beginning there were 
only Light and Water, the eldest of the Zoological Myths is 
the Fish Myth.” 2 
According to de Gubernatis,? ‘‘ the ancient systems of myth- 
ology have not ceased to exist : they have been merely diffused 
1 Cf., however, ‘“‘ The Story of the Deluge,” in the Catapatha Brahmana. 
2 P. Robinson, op. cit. (p. 18), to which I owe much, here and elsewhere. 
3 Op. cit., p. xi. 
