Rainbows

Something as beautiful and colourful as a rainbow couldn’t have escaped the imaginations of our early thinkers, could it? It is not that people then sought answers only for scary things, they were curious of such beautiful things too. So how does mythology see Rainbows?

Some of the mythologies have the rainbow associated with the destructive flood myth. As per the Biblical myth, a Rainbow is a sign of the Covenant (promise) made by God to Noah that there would be no such deluge again -           

·         Seven Noahide laws that emerged out of this covenant came to be symbolically represented by the seven colours of the rainbow.

·         The Noahide laws are considered basic principles of living righteously in a civilised society and a path to achieving salvation.

As per the Sumeiran Epic of Gilgamesh, the Rainbow is “jeweled necklace of Mother Goddess Ishtar” that she lifts on the sky, never to forget the flood that destroyed her children. An Australian Aboriginal myth says that after the floods, the Rainbow was used by the Supreme Being to ‘tie’ the rain-clouds and thus to hold back the rains.

However, not all myths are not associated with the Flood. Let’s see some of them.

·         As per the Greek myths, the Rainbow was considered to be a path made by Iris, the messenger, between Earth and Heaven.

·         As per the Hindu myth, Rainbow or the Indradhanush is the bow of Indra, the god of lightning and thunder.

·         According to Chinese mythology, the Rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by the Goddess Nuwa using stones of five different colour

·         In Nordic Mythology, a rainbow called the Bifröst Bridge connects the homes of the gods and humans. The Germans believe that the rainbow was a bowl that God used to colour the world during creation.

·         Sometimes, a rainbow is considered a bridge, which is formed when St. Peter opens the gates of Heaven to let in some souls. The colours of the rainbow are supposed to give a glimpse of the magnificence of the heavens.

The Irish leprechaun's secret hiding place for his pot of gold is usually said to be at the end of the rainbow. This place is impossible to reach, because the rainbow is an optical effect which depends on the location of the viewer. When walking towards the end of a rainbow, it will move further away.