arthra

There's a Zoroastrian story about Yima and his enclosure that seems a lot like the Noah story except with ice...

Ahura Mazda was revealing to Zarathushtra what He had told Yima Kshaeta, king of the Aryans twenty thousand years ago. The history of the splendid VARA, stronghold of the Aryans was being unfolded. Ahura had told the righteous king:

"O Yima! To this mighty Vara then carry families of all males and females who are on this earth most exalted, most excellent, and most beautiful. To the Vara carry the families of all sorts of cattle on this earth, which are most exalted, most excellent and most beautiful.

"To that place carry the seeds of all trees which are most exalted and sweetest of odour on this earth, carry the seeds of all food most eatable in this world and sweetest of odour. Make these couples unfailing in their love, and everlasting by reproduction; so long as the Aryans stay in the enclosure.

"There should be no person who quarrels, no one who slanders, no impure person. There should be no one with filthiness, no one with deceit nor meanness. There should be none speaking evil words, no one with an embellishment of evil spread over the body (a skin disease), no one here who in general has any characteristic of the evil one.

"Make three levels in the mighty Vara. In the uppermost level, make nine such wide enclosures, in the middle level, make six. In the lowermost level, make three enclosures. In the uppermost wide enclosure let 1000 couples, men and women live. In the middle let 600 couples live, in the lowest enclosure let 300 couples pass their lives.

"High above each of these enclosures, use a golden instrument and make doors and windows. By self-light should the inner parts be illumined.

"Yima now wondered how he might make this glorious Vara. So I Who am Ahura Mazda, said to him:

"O beautiful Yima, turn this land upside down with the heel and the hand, as men do to grow seeds; and thus build the Vara (by tunnelling underground).

"Yima did so as was demanded by Me, righteous Zarathushtra. He built the Aryan Vara with it's multiple levels that you see before you now. Here the most perfect of the Aryan race exist."

Zarathushtra looked at the Vara and it's inhabitants, and he was astonished yet again. He had never seen anything like this on the surface of the earth before. It was as if there was an entire city, an entire world in existance in the Vara beneath the snows and ice of the North Pole - a totally self-contained and self-sustaining Aryan stronghold.

What he really found amazing was, although the ancient homeland Airyane Vaejahi under which the Vara was situated was shrouded in inky blackness and blasted by continuing blizards of ice, the Vara itself was brilliantly illumined, as if the sun was shining directly down on it.

The "VAR" (enclosure) of King Jamshed: as described in the Vendidad

Yeshua

Thank You for this Arthra - the similarities are fascinating!

I throw in also the Sumerian religious figure of "Utnapishtim" from the Epic of Gilgamesh (written over 2,000 BC).

The Sumerian civilisation was the first recorded civilisation, emerging around 4,000 BC.

Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh can also be found in the Bible, in particular in the stories of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (both stories involve a serpent) and the story of Noah and the Flood.

The parallels between the stories of Enkidu/Shamhat and Adam/Eve have been long recognized by scholars.

However what amazes me most is the Flood narrative in the Epic and the figure of Utnapishtim - who in my opinion is very clearly the much earlier, Sumerian version of the later biblical and Qur'anic "Noah" story.

What this demostrates to me is that a "Noah" figure was remebered in various ways by diverse cultures of the Ancient World. It also proves to me that the biblical character of "Noah" was not just a myth, but is based on very real ancient traditions of such a prophetic figure.

Utnapishtim (Noah) is also known within Sumerian writings by the name of, "Ziusudra".

From wikipedia:


"...In the WB-62 Sumerian king list recension, Ziusudra, or Zin-Suddu of Shuruppak is recorded as having reigned as both king and gudug priest for 10 sars, or periods of 3,600.[5] In this version, Ziusudra inherited rulership from his father Šuruppak (written SU.KUR.LAM) who ruled for 10 sars.[6] The line following Ziusudra in WB-62 reads: Then the flood swept over. The next line reads: After the flood swept over, kingship descended from heaven; the kingship was in Kish. The city of Kish flourished in the Early Dynastic period soon after an archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq) and various other Sumerian cities. This flood has been radiocarbon dated to ca. 2900 BCE...Ziusudra being a king from Shuruppak is supported by the Gilgamesh XI tablet (see below) making reference to Utnapishtim (Akkadian translation of the Sumerian name Ziusudra) with the epithet "man of Shuruppak" at line 23...The tale of Ziusudra is known from a single fragmentary tablet written in Sumerian, datable by its script to the 17th century BC (Old Babylonian Empire), and published in 1914 by Arno Poebel.[11] The first part deals with the creation of man and the animals and the founding of the first cities Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larsa, Sippar, and Shuruppak. After a missing section in the tablet, we learn that the gods have decided to send a flood to destroy mankind. The god Enki (lord of the underworld sea of fresh water and Sumerian equivalent of Babylonian god Ea) warns Ziusudra, the ruler of Shuruppak, to build a large boat; the passage describing the directions for the boat is also lost. When the tablet resumes, it is describing the flood. A terrible storm raged for seven days, "the huge boat had been tossed about on the great waters," then Utu (Sun) appears and Ziusudra opens a window, prostrates himself, and sacrifices an ox and a sheep. After another break, the text resumes, the flood is apparently over, and Ziusudra is prostrating himself before An (Sky) and Enlil (Lordbreath), who give him "breath eternal" and take him to dwell in Dilmun. The remainder of the poem is lost..."


"Ziusudra" is thus the earliest reference to the man who later became known as "Noah".

The Akkadian Atrahasis Epic tells how the god Enki warns the hero Atrahasis ("Extremely Wise") to build a boat to escape a flood. Again the same Noah narrative as understood by a different culture.


Wikipedia continues:


In the eleventh tablet of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim "the faraway" is the wise king of the Sumerian city state of Shuruppak who, along with his unnamed wife, survived a flood sent by Enlil to drown every living thing on Earth. Utnapishtim was secretly warned by the water god Ea of Enlil's plan and constructed a great boat or ark to save himself, his family and representatives of each species of animal. When the flood waters subsided, the boat was grounded on the mountain of Nisir. When Utnapishtim's ark had been becalmed for seven days, he released a dove, who found no resting place and returned. A swallow was then released who found no perch and also returned, but the raven which was released third did not return. Utnapishtim then made a sacrifice and poured out a libation to Ea on the top of mount Nisir. Utnapishtim and his wife were granted immortality after the flood. Afterwards, he is taken by the gods to live forever at "the mouth of the rivers" and given the epithet "faraway".

The Babylonian myth of Utnapishtim (meaning "He found life", presumably in reference to the gift of immortality given him by the gods) is matched by the earlier Epic of Atrahasis, and by the Sumerian version, the Epic of Ziusudra. In fact, we now know that Utnapishtim and Atrahasis are one and the same. Atrahasis' name was simply changed to Utnapishtim after he was granted immortality. This explains why the name Atrahasis occurs in the Gilgamesh flood story even though the character is introduced as Utnapishtim


And the article says of Noah:


"...The similarities between the story of Noah's Ark, the Sumerian story of Ziusudra, and the Babylonian stories of Atrahasis and Utnapishtim are shown by corresponding lines in various versions:


"the storm had swept...for seven days and seven nights" — Ziusudra 203
"For seven days and seven nights came the storm" — Atrahasis III,iv, 24
"Six days and seven nights the wind and storm" — Gilgamesh XI, 127
"rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights" — Genesis 7:12


"He offered a sacrifice" — Atrahasis III,v, 31
"And offered a sacrifice" — Gilgamesh XI, 155
"offered burnt offerings on the altar" — Genesis 8:20
"built an altar and sacrificed to the gods" — Berossus.


"The gods smelled the savor" — Atrahasis III,v,34
"The gods smelled the sweet savor" — Gilgamesh XI, 160
"And the Lord smelled the sweet savor..." — Genesis 8:21..."


In Greek mythology, Noah has often been compared to Deucalion, the son of Prometheus and Pronoia. Like Noah, Deucalion is a wine maker or wine seller; he is forewarned of the flood (this time by Zeus); he builds an ark and staffs it with creatures - and when he completes his voyage, gives thanks and takes advice from the gods on how to repopulate the Earth. Deucalion also sends a pigeon to find out about the situation of the world and the bird return with an olive branch.

Noah most definetly impacted civilisation and the human conciousness in a very profound way! Look how many diverse cultures have echoes/remebrances of his ancient life-story!

arthra

Yes I've known about the epic of Gilgamesh..

but the interesting thing to me though is that the Yima legend has very close similarities to Noah but with say an "ice age" ....twenty thousand years ago..

See:

http://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd2sbe.htm

Yima (Iranian religion) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia