According to Indian tradition, a rainbow is composed of five colours: red, orange, yellow, green and blue. A Sanskrit-epithet for a rainbow alluding to this five-fold nature (pañcālika) occurs as a loan word in Tibetan, both in transliterated (pañ tsa li ka) and translated (kha dog sna lnga) form (Das 1995: 778). [Source: Studia Orientalia 109/Himalayan Nature Representations and Reality]