Flood myths

Many mythologies around the world have a flood myth But not all flood myths are the sameThe most popular flood myth is the flood associated with Noah in the Old Testament of the Bible We are told that the world had become wicked and cruel and Jehovah the one true god the creator got angry So he sent a great flood to destroy the world However Noah was spared because he was a good man He was told to build a boat and fill it with the male and female of every species he could find to repopulate the earth after the flood This story is also found in Jewish and Islamic myths tooThe Biblical tale can be traced to ancient Sumerian mythology But here it is a group of gods the Annunaki who get angry with the noise created by humans so they send a flood to destroy the Earth Only Utnapishtim was allowed to survive and he survived by creating a boat made of reeds This story narrated in the Epic of Gilgamesh nearly 4000 years ago transformed into the story of Noah in the Biblical traditions 2500 years agoGreeks tell a similar story where we are told that Zeus got angry by the constant warring of men So he sent a flood to destroy them all However one of the men survived He was Daedelus This was due to the intervention of a Titan called Prometheus Daedalus creates the human race by throwing rocks over his shoulder which sprout and transform into human beings The Greek story is clearly an import from its eastern Mesopotamian neighboursIn all these stories the flood is the result of a divine wrathmdasheither of one true god or a group of gods However if you look at the flood myths which are found in China and India there is no angry god in the pictureIn China the great goddess Nu Wa created humans to play with She made aristocrats using yellow clay and commoners using brown clay A fight amongst gods destroys the pillars that uphold the heavens which leads to a downpour that becomes the floods But then she repairs this breach in the heavens with the help of the legs of a giant turtle and stops the deluge When it comes to river floods we learn of the worldrsquos first hydraulic engineer Yu who saved the villages and farms by building canals and was elected tobe EmperorHindu mythology also talks about floods The earliest reference to it comes from Satapatha Brahmana It is repeated in the Vishnu Purana where Manu saves a small fish and helps it grow Many years later the small fish manifests as a large gigantic fish It tells Manu to build a boat for himself to protect himself from a flood The fish takes Manu and his boat to a safe place on the highest peak of MeruDepending on which version of the story you hear the flood is considered a part of Sandhya or the twilight of the world The flood is the result of human greed asking for more water to provide for the growing fish Here flood is a natural phenomenon the result of cultural corruption part of the ageing process of the world It has nothing to do with the anger of the gods or the disobedience of humanity In other words all flood myths are not the same Every culture explains it and responds to it differentlyThe author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times Reach him at devduttpattanaikmiddaycom