Note 714 — Chapter X · THE HEBREW MYTH IN THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY.

I will here cite a passage of Ibn Chaldûn, although not decisive on questions like the present: ‘Know that the Persians and Indians know nothing of the Ṭûfân (deluge); some Persians say that it took place only at Babylon.’ (History, vol. II.) Edward Thomas, in the Academy, 1875, p. 401, quotes a passage of al-Bîrûnî, in which it is said that the Indians, Chinese and Persians have no story of a Deluge, but that some say that the Persians know of a partial deluge. Burnouf believed the idea of a Deluge to be originally foreign to Indian mythology, and to have been borrowed, probably from Chaldaic sources (Bhâgavata Purâṇa, III. XXXI., LI.). A. Weber (in the Indische Studien, Heft 2, and on occasion of a critique of Nêve’s writings on the Indian story of the Deluge, in the Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., 1851, V. 526) declares himself in favour of the indigenousness of the Indian story, in opposition to Lassen and Roth, who agree with Burnouf.