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40 Days and 40 Nights of Rain: The Significance of the Biblical Flood Narrative and Other Universal Flood Accounts From Around the World

Khalid Elhassan May 19, 2025 17 min

Flood - Noah's Ark during the Genesis flood — Noah's Ark during the Genesis flood. Live Science

8. Hindu Flood Myth

Many and the Seven Sages saved from the flood by Vishnu in the form of a fish. Pinterest

Hinduism features a prominent flood myth in the Satapatha Brahmana, a Vedic text, and later in the Puranas. The central figure is Manu, the first man. Manu saves a small fish that turns out to be the god Vishnu, and in return, the fish warns him of a coming flood. So Manu builds a boat and is towed by the divine fish to safety as the flood destroys all life.

After the flood, Manu performs rituals and sacrifices, from which a woman is born to help him recreate humankind. The Manu myth is highly symbolic, linking dharma, or righteousness, divine intervention, and cosmic cycles. The fish, one of Vishnu’s ten avatars, Dashavatara, highlights the story’s theological centrality.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.