shape. Originally Ea may have been a sacred fish. The Indian creative
gods Brahma and Vishnu had fish forms. In Sanskrit literature Manu,
the eponymous "first man", is instructed by the fish to build a ship
in which to save himself when the world would be purged by the rising
waters. Ea befriended in similar manner the Babylonian Noah, called
Pir-napishtim, advising him to build a vessel so as to be prepared for
the approaching Deluge. Indeed the Indian legend appears to throw
light on the original Sumerian conception of Ea. It relates that when
the fish was small and in danger of being swallowed by other fish in a
stream it appealed to Manu for protection. The sage at once lifted up
the fish and placed it in a jar of water. It gradually increased in
bulk, and he transferred it next to a tank and then to the river
Ganges. In time the fish complained to Manu that the river was too
small for it, so he carried it to the sea. For these services the god
in fish form instructed Manu regarding the approaching flood, and
afterwards piloted his ship through the weltering waters until it
rested on a mountain top.[32]

If this Indian myth is of Babylonian origin, as appears probable, it
may be that the spirit of the river Euphrates, "the soul of the land",
was identified with a migrating fish. The growth of the fish suggests
the growth of the river rising in flood. In Celtic folk tales high
tides and valley floods are accounted for by the presence of a "great
beast" in sea, loch, or river. In a class of legends, "specially
connected with the worship of Atargatis", wrote Professor Robertson
Smith, "the divine life of the waters resides in the sacred fish that
inhabit them. Atargatis and her son, according to a legend common to
Hierapolis and Ascalon, plunged into the waters--in the first case the
Euphrates, in the second the sacred pool at the temple near the
town--and were changed into fishes". The idea is that "where a god