“Now she is the same with the Id[=a] ceremony; and whoever, knowing this, performs sacrifice with the Id[=a], he begets the race that Manu generated; and whatever blessing he invokes through her, all is granted unto him.”

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.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  In [=A]it.  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[=a]jus, the Adhvaryu, who attends to the erection of the altar, etc.  Compare Mueller, 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[=a]ittir[=i]ya collection; and the M[=a]itr[=a]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.]

     [Footnote 7:  The Cata-patha Br[=a]hmana (or “Br[=a]mana of
     the hundred paths”) II. 2. 2. 6; 4.3.14.]

[Footnote 8:  The chief family priest, it is said in the Cat.  Br.  II. 4. 4. 5, is a man of great influence.  Sometimes one priest becomes religious head of two clans (an extraordinary event, however; only one name is reported) and then how exalted is his position.  Probably, as in the later age of the drama, the chief priest often at the same time practically prime minister.  It is said in another part of the same book that although the whole earth is divine, yet it is the priest that makes holy the place of sacrifice (III. 1. 1. 4).  In this period murder is defined as killing a priest; other cases are not called murder.  Weber, IS.  X. 66.]

     [Footnote 9:  Barth, loc. cit. p. 42.]

     [Footnote 10:  He has analogy with Agni in being made of
     ‘seven persons (males),’ Cat.  Br. X. 2. 2. 1.]