The Great Flood Through The Ages

If there is one event that almost all historians and researchers of ancient myths are fascinated about it is the Great Flood. Not only are there accounts of this catastrophe in the religious texts of Judaic, Christian and Islamic traditions, we also find a similar story in the ancient Mesopotamian texts most notably in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which predates the Torah, Bible and Quran. Besides these there seems to be an account of some kind of deluge or an event involving a large body of water after which a large number of people perished and new mankind emerged in many cultures. These myths are not confined to the Middle East alone, we find such stories in some Native American tribes, Greek, Roman, Celtic, African, Indian, even Chinese mythologies.

At the advent of civilization it seems flooding played a vital role in the purification of the human race. Initially I used to think that it was perhaps a metaphor for spiritual cleansing of people – in other words the evil and the impure were washed away while the pure survived (which is really the central message of all religions). Later as more geological data became available we found that there indeed tell-tale signs of rising water levels caused due to melting ice-sheets and water erosion due to heavy rain fall. Perhaps it was these distant global events that were preserved in mythology as a way of passing historic knowledge through the ages?

The recent change in weather patterns, however leads me to believe there is a more mundane explanation for such a proliferation of the Flood Myth. In Pakistan the province of Sindh has been ravaged an unrelenting downpour for nearly a month. Like the Flood of Noah the sky is ruthless in its rage and the earth does not have the capacity to absorb its wrath, hence the water keeps rising. Whereas Noah built one huge Ark to save people and animals, the modern day victims of this disaster find any means they can to save their lives and any livestock they can manage to snatch away from the certain death which awaits them either by drowning or starvation. The population of this one area is much larger than entire ancient empires, perhaps in those times one large boat could save all of Noah’s people and animals but given the present population figures such a feat would have been impossible. Primitive means of transport restricted the distance travelled by people, indeed many generations never ventured away from their village, so it is no wonder that if there was such widespread rain and flooding it would have seemed a global event to them. Since it is completely probable that many parts of the world at some point or the other fell prey to this fury of nature, it goes without saying that various flood myths would crop up all over the world.

But the ending of the ancient floods myths and the modern flood saga are completely different from each other. Those who survived the ancient floods went on to build new civilizations, those who survive the present day Sindh floods have lost whatever little they had built over years. The ancient survivors claimed their stake on a brand new world, the present day survivors cannot even find a roof over their heads. The ancient flood ended on a glorious note of hope, the modern flood sends its victims into an abyss of hopelessness these already battered victims had not even thought possible could exist. These humble yet strong people who lent their name to an entire sub-continent now find themselves in a situation where a battle between dignity and hunger rages, and hunger wins every time.

If mankind survives another 2000 years or so, perhaps a new Flood Myth will be written, one with an ending which is more tragic than glorious. Our future generations will not be saying how the righteous are saved and the evil wiped out, rather the moral of the story may be how the righteous pay the price for the wrong doings of the corrupt and the morally bankrupt.