Many mythologies around the world have a flood myth. But not all flood myths are the same.
The 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 too.
The 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 Ut-napishtim was allowed to survive, and he survived by creating a boat made of reeds. This story, narrated in the Epic of Gilgamesh, nearly 4,000 years ago, transformed into the story of Noah in the Biblical traditions, 2,500 years ago.
Greeks 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 neighbours.
In all these stories, the flood is the result of a divine wrath–either 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 picture.
Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist, author and communicator whose works focus largely on the areas of myth, religion, mythology, and management.
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