He, seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to
Monan: 'Wilt thou also destroy the heavens and their garniture? Alas!
henceforth where will be our home? Why should I live, since there is
none other of my kind?' Then Monan was so filled with pity that he
poured a deluging rain on the earth, which quenched the fire, and,
flowing from all sides, formed the ocean, which we call _parana_, the
bitter waters."[211-1]
In these narratives I have not attempted to soften the asperities nor
conceal the childishness which run through them. But there is no
occasion to be astonished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them
any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of their authors and
believers. We can go back to the cradle of our own race in Central
Asia, and find traditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from
adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great occurrence, as it is
handed down to us in ancient Sanscrit literature. It will be seen that
it is little, if at all, superior to those just rehearsed.
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