The Matsya Purana tells an amazing story I'm positive you'll find interesting. Long ago a man named Manu was bathing when he accidentally cupped a small fish in his hands. The fish begged him home because a river full of hungry big fish was not a safe place for a tasty little fish.
Manu placed the fish in a bowl of water but it quickly outgrew its new home. Manu kept transferring the fish into larger containers until finally it grew so large that it would not be perfectly safe in the sea. As he released the fish into the ocean it thanked him for his kindness and warned him, " Very soon the entire planet is going to be destroyed in a flood. Build yourself a boat and put two very kind of creature into it, and seeds of all types. Better hurry!"
Manu quickly obeyed. Soon a tremendous flood blanketed the world with raging waters. The fish reappeared, with a horn on its head this time. Manu tied his floundering vessel to the fish, which towed him to the safety of a nearby mountain. When the waters subsided Manu repopulated the world which is why we're called the race of man, or of Manu. By now figured out that the fish was none other than Vishnu himself, come to save humanity from total destruction.
The fish Messiah reappears in ancient Zoroastrian mythology where he advises Yima, the first man, to release a dove to see how low waters have ebbed. He shows up again in a Sumerian tablet dated to 1750 B.C.E. Previously scholars had thought the Sumerian version of "Noah's Ark"was the oldest. With the redating of early Vedic and Zoroastrian texts, it's now much more likely the Hindu myth is by far the most ancient version of this famous story.
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