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There is one of the earliest avatar stories in this tale. Later writers, of course, identify the fish with Brahm[=a) and with Vishnu. In other early Br[=a]hmanas the avatars of a god as a tortoise and a boar were known long before they were appropriated by the Vishnuites.
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FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In (=Ajit. Br. I. 22, there is an unexplained antithesis of Rik, Yajus, S[=a]man, Veda, and Brahma, where the commentator takes Veda to be Atharva Veda. The priests, belonging respectively to the first three Vedas, are for the Rig Veda, the Hotar priest, who recites; for the S[=a]man, the Udg[=a]tar, 'the singer'; for the Y[=aljus, the Adhvaryu, who attends to the erection of the altar, etc. Compare Müller, ASL. p. 468.]
[Footnote 2: It is the only literature of its time except (an important exception) those fore-runners of later S[=u]tra and epic which one may suppose to be in process of formation long before they come to the front.]
[Footnote 3: There are several schools of this Veda, of which the chief are the V[=a]jasaneyi, or 'White Yajus,' collection; the T[=ajittir(=i]ya collection; and the M[ra]itr[ra]yan(=i] collection; the first named being the latest though the most popular, the last two being the foremost representatives of the 'Black Yajus.']
[Footnote 4: The different traits here recorded are given with many illustrative examples by Schroeder, in his Literatur und Cultur, p. 90 ff.]
[Footnote 5: Compare Weber, Ind. Streifen, II. 197.]
[Footnote 6: Weber, Lit. p. 73.]
