International Journal of History

The narrative of a Great Flood is found in various ancient religious texts and mythologies across different cultures of the world. These stories of great flood have religious significance and are generally considered as acts of divine retribution. Though the narratives vary in characters, plot, and even their meaning in each religion or culture; but the common themes in all these stories are the mighty flood sent by God to destroy the civilisation and giving salvation to few chosen ones who then repopulate the earth with pious people. Despite variations in details, these narratives often convey universal themes such as divine judgment, redemption, rebirth, and the preservation of life. The present article explores the Great Flood stories in different religions, highlighting their similarities, differences, and underlying messages. These included the religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrian, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and the cultures like Mesopotamia, Greek, Chinese, and aboriginals of Australia. The study focused on close examination of the narratives and the comparison of their commonalities. Almost in all stories, the flood waters were described as the measure to cleanse the humanity and prepare for rebirth. Further, all these flood stories contain a cultural hero, who represents the human craving for life. Despite all these similarities, the consequences of the great floods varied from story to story based on prevailing local settings. All these flood stories have scientific base and could be very well interpreted as the outcome of geological phenomenon like glacier melting at the end of ice age leading to earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, etc.