White has many positive associations and few negative ones. White represents light, sun, illumination, sacredness, purity, virginity, and the transcendent. White is the Tibetan color of Mount Meru, the mountain at the center of the world, which embodies ascent to enlightenment. In the Orient, Ancient Greece, and Rome, white is the color of mourning.
White is often associated with the cardinal directions. White is the Egyptian, Aztec, Celtic, and Japanese symbol of the South. For people from Yucatán, South America, and India white represents the North. In Ceylon, Java, Siberia, and Tibet, white is the symbol of the East. In Navajo mythology, why is the symbol of the East and dawn, and also represent the maize from which first man came. White represents the West in Chinese lore.
As a symbol of life and love, death and burial, brides wear white to represent death of the old life and birth into the new. Deities clothed in white robes were symbolic of love-life-death. Aphrodite of the tombs; the Scandinavian, Freyja, goddess of love; and the Teutonic Hel/Freyja, the goddess of death, wore white garments.
In alchemy, White is the femina alba, the White Lily, and represents woman, the feminine principle, the moon, silver, quicksilver, the purity of undivided light, and the second stage of the Great Work.
For Amerindians, white is the color of sacredness and the Aztec color of the dying sun and night. In Buddhist mythology and belief, white is the color of self-mastery, redemption, and Sitatara, the White Tara, the highest spiritual transformation through womanhood, the Mother of all Buddhas.
Sitatara, the White Tara from www.jampaydorje.com/info.html
Chinese mythology tales of the White Tiger, Pai Hu, symbol of longevity, dignity, and military prowess. In China, why is the color of Autumn, metal, and mourning. The emperor wears white when worshipping the moon.
White represents the purified soul, joy, purity, virginity, innocent, and the holy life in Christianity. White is worn at all sacraments: baptism, confirmation, first communion, marriage, and death.
In Hinduism, white symbolizes pure consciousness, self-illumination, and light.