The Fish and the Flood

When the Pandavas asked the deathless sage Markandeya how the world had once been saved from a flood that swallowed everything, he told them of Manu and the fish, the oldest story of the great deluge.

There was in the ancient days a king who had become a great sage, named Manu, the father and forefather of mankind, a man of immense penance and unshakable righteousness. One day, as Manu performed his austerities on the bank of a river, a tiny fish swam up to his cupped hands as he took water, and to his astonishment the little fish spoke.

"Protect me, holy one," the small fish begged. "I am weak and little, and the big fish devour the small - that is the cruel law of the waters, that the strong eat the weak. The larger fish are hunting me, and I am afraid. Save me, and one day I will do something for you in return."

Manu was moved with pity for the helpless creature. He lifted the tiny fish out of the river and carried it carefully home.

Manu placed the little fish in a small jar of water to keep it safe. But overnight the fish grew, until by morning it was too large for the jar, and it spoke again: "I have outgrown this vessel, Manu. Give me a larger place." So Manu moved it to a big earthen tank - and soon the fish outgrew that too. He moved it to a pond, and it filled the pond. He carried it to a great lake, and it filled the lake. Wherever Manu put the fish, it swelled until that place could no longer hold it, growing with a swiftness that was clearly no work of nature.

At last the fish had grown so vast that no pool or lake on land could contain it, and Manu carried the enormous creature down to the sea and set it free in the boundless ocean. As he released it into the waves, the fish, now grown to a colossal size that filled even the eye against the horizon, turned to him - and Manu understood at last that this was no ordinary fish, but a divine being, the Lord himself in the form of a fish, who had come to him for a purpose.

The great fish spoke to Manu out of the sea, and its voice was deep and kind. "You have cared for me faithfully, Manu, and now I will repay you, and through you I will save the seeds of all life. Hear me well, for a terrible thing is coming.

"The time of the great dissolution is near. Soon the waters will rise and a flood will cover the whole earth - the seas will swell, the rains will pour without end, and all the worlds, all living things, all the works of creatures, will be drowned and swept away beneath one boundless ocean. Nothing on the land will survive it. But you shall be preserved, and through you the world shall be renewed when the waters fall again.

"This is what you must do. Build a strong, great boat, and make it ready. Gather into it the seeds of all things - the seeds of every plant, and samples of every kind of life - and take with you the seven great sages, the rishis. When the flood comes and the waters rise, go aboard your boat. And I will come to you. Wait for me, and I will carry you safely through the deluge."

Manu did exactly as the fish had instructed. He built a great and sturdy boat, strong enough to ride out any storm, and he made it ready against the coming of the flood. He gathered into it the seeds of all the plants and herbs of the earth, the beginnings of every living kind, so that life might be sown again when the waters receded. And he brought aboard the seven great sages, the rishis, the keepers of the sacred knowledge, that wisdom too might survive the drowning of the world.

Then he waited, watching the sea and the sky, for the signs the fish had foretold. And in time they came. The clouds gathered, dark and vast as mountains; the rains began and would not stop; the rivers overflowed and the sea climbed up the land. The waters rose and rose, swallowing the fields and the forests, the hills and the cities, climbing higher every day, until the whole familiar world began to vanish beneath a single spreading ocean, exactly as the great fish had said.

Manu and the seven sages went aboard the boat with the seeds of all life, and pushed off onto the rising waters, and waited for their deliverer.

As the flood swallowed the last of the land and there was nothing in any direction but heaving water under a black and streaming sky, the great fish appeared. It rose up out of the drowned world, vast beyond all measure now, and upon its head it bore a single great horn, gleaming above the waves.

Manu, as he had been told, took a strong rope and bound his boat fast to the horn of the fish. And then the divine fish began to swim, towing the boat behind it through the raging deluge. Through the storm and the towering waves, through the endless water that covered all the worlds, the great fish drew the little boat with its precious cargo of seeds and sages and the father of mankind. The winds howled and the waters surged, but the fish swam steady and sure, and the boat rode safe behind it, the one small ark of life upon the face of a drowned creation.

For a long, long time the fish towed the boat across the shoreless flood, holding the seeds of the whole future world safe upon its single horn, until at last it came to the only thing that still rose above the waters.

At the far end of that long voyage, the great fish brought the boat to the highest peak of the Himalaya, the one summit that still stood above the universal ocean, its top alone breaking the endless surface of the flood. There the fish told Manu to make the boat fast to the mountain peak, and Manu tied his vessel to the high summit and held there, safe, above the drowned world.

Then the great fish spoke its last words to Manu before departing. It revealed itself fully as the supreme Lord, the preserver of the worlds, who had taken the form of a fish to save the seed of life through the dissolution. "You are saved, Manu," it said, "and through you all that I gave you to keep is saved. When the waters fall, you shall descend, and from you and from the seeds you have preserved the whole world shall be made new and peopled again. You yourself shall be the father of the renewed creation." And so saying, the divine fish vanished into the waters, its work complete.

In time the rains ceased and the great flood began to subside. The waters drew back slowly, sinking down from the mountains and uncovering the land, until at last the earth lay bare again - washed clean, emptied of all that had been, ready to begin once more. Manu came down from the peak with his boat, the seeds of all life, and the seven sages, onto a new and silent world.

Then Manu, the survivor, became the father of the renewed creation. From the seeds he had preserved, the plants and the living kinds were sown again across the cleansed earth. By his penance and by the grace of the Lord, mankind was begun anew through him - which is why he is called Manu, the father of men, and why all the generations of humankind are said to descend from him, the one righteous man who was saved from the flood. The knowledge kept by the seven sages was carried into the new age, so that wisdom was not lost in the drowning. And the world, which had been dissolved utterly into water, rose green and living again, made new out of the seeds that one compassionate man had saved because he once took pity on a tiny, helpless fish.

Markandeya finished the tale, and the Pandavas marveled at the great age of the story and the vastness of the things it told.

"There is more in it than the wonder of a flood, son of Pandu," said the sage. "Consider how it began. The whole future of the world - all life, all knowledge, the renewal of creation itself - hung upon a single small act of compassion: that Manu, a great king and sage, did not despise a tiny, helpless fish that begged him for protection, but stooped to save it. From that one act of mercy to the smallest of creatures, the saving of the entire world unfolded.

"So you never know, when you show kindness to the weak and the helpless, what great thing may grow from it. The mighty often overlook the small; but the small fish that Manu sheltered became the Lord who saved all the worlds. Protect the weak who come to you for refuge, and do not measure a creature's worth by its size - for in the humble thing you shelter today may lie the deliverance of tomorrow."

And the Pandavas, who had themselves been brought low and made small and forced to seek shelter, took comfort and instruction from the tale of the fish and the flood.