Through the form-critical method the traditio-historical method is
not pushed aside but integrated as a very useful basis for getting new
scientific findings. In the preface to his commentary on 1 and 2 Chronicles,
Simon de Vries points out: Devoted by design to structure, genre, and
intention, this commentary aims to fill a large, too long tolerated gap. This
is not to deny, however, that it has been vastly enriched by commentaries
of the ordinary type, which actually do at times offer important insights into
matters of form and tradition criticism, but which have been relied on here
mainly for historical, textual, and philological analysis.43
If the form-critical method is applied to the old Indian texts many
new discoveries will be achieved. But the task is so enormous that the
German indologists cannot fulfill it alone. Therefore especially Indian
scholars are asked to strengthen their efforts in publishing new commen-
taries. To achieve this aim a great help could especially come from the so
far often neglected Dravidian part of Indology, that means that South
Indian linguists should strengthen their endeavours to make their contribu-
tion to the new understanding arising from the form-critical method.
To give an example for the global aspect of the form-critical method
we comeback to the deluge story commented by Klaus Koch. The deluge
story presupposes that the flood covered the whole globe but it is almost
certain that the deluge story of Genesis was a huge flood in the Meso-
potamian lowlands only. But astonishingly the Mesopotamian versions
and even the Indian versions presuppose an overflooding of the globe.44
There are about 250 deluge stories from different parts of the world. Most
of them speak of a global overflooding.
Koch states that "the deluge expresses a human basic experience
with a symbolic meaning.45 Water is a telling symbol of life and at the
same time the most telling symbol of chaos. Most of the deluge stories share the
opinion that there is a divine power maintaining order against chaos.
Therefore they are not mere historical reports but they express a human
basic experience. Man has the inclination to consider his own - often
limited - world as the whole world.
In 1872 a certain George Smith read the paper The Chaldean
Account of Genesis' which marked a turning point in the history of Old
Testament exegesis and at the same time for exegesis of all old texts. The
paper clearly shows that the Babylonian deluge story is much older than the
one given in Genesis.46
In the Satapatha Brahmana another deluge story is mentioned. The
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