THE WORSHIP OF SNAKES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2239, 13 November 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE WORSHIP OF SNAKES.

Thk Naga snake of India, cobra di cnpcllr^ ' is revered by all Hindoos and Hindoo' Women, according to Dr. BUfour's Cyclopaedia of India, resort to the white; ant nests in which the cobra generally takes up his home. If a cobsa be killed the Hindoos give it a funeral as if it were a human being ; their gods and deified wai riors and the lingam aie figuicl, shadowed by the overspreading heads of three, live, seven, nine or eleven cobras. Figures of the cobra snake are often drawn on paper and in sculpture with the hood spread like a canopy Qver the lingam, the emblem of Siva, and this deity is often represented sitting on a tiger skin with a cobra snake wound yound his head. Siva is fabled to have '*runk np the poison produced in the churning of the ocean, and in his agony widppod snakes round bis neck to cool himself. Vishnu, in his prolonged sleep, while passing from one Avatar to another, is scaled by the canopy of a cobra* hcid. Ordinarily no Hindo will kill a jmako, but I urns aside on seeing- it. Leprosy, optlulmi-i and childlessness are supposed by Hindoes to be the punishment of men, who in a former or present birth may have killed a serpent, und to be relieved of the«e the worship (f the perptnt is enjoined. Tie temple at Subrawraniya one of the highot peaks of the Western Ghauts, is celebratod in the Hindoo world. It is * «>quare in form, with open cloiators on the four side*, and the sanctuary containing tho idol Subba Rao is in the centre. Like moit of the pagodas in Canard, it fall* short of those in the Carnatic in point of architecture, but is substantial and neat, being built of Ulcrito, sundstono and granite. Many reptiles hive taken np their residence tvithiu it, in holes made for the purpose. People from all directions resort to this sawed place during the December festiv.il to perform their vows and mako purchases at tho extensive cattle fair held at the same tirn<\ Sa':h persons as have m-ide vows roll around tho quadrangle of the pagoda, while others roll np to the pagoda from a liver abo.it a mile diatan f , Mr Ferguson regards tree worship in association with serpent worship as tho primitive faith of maukind. D ilmmey is the present chief seat of serpent worship, where it; is now practised with more completeness than auywhero else, ani where this most ancient of idolatries may probably hive remained from tho earliest times almost unchanged. The existing influence in India of tho snike w<?rship nriy ha illustrated by mentioning* that in M idras, in 1372, a daughter born to a Brahmin gentleman of raro intellect, was named Nagainah, or sn<ike mother, because a siuke was supposed to have boon seen at conception.