Chapter II: Tree and Serpent Worship (2)

The Orâons of Bengal revere the tamarind and bury their dead under its shade. [291] One special rite among the Drâvidian races is the Imlî ghontnâ or "the grinding of the tamarind," when the mother of the bridegroom grinds on the family curry stone some pods of the tamarind. The tree was a special favourite with the early Musalmân conquerors, and the finest specimens of it will be found in their cemeteries and near their original settlements.

The Siras.

In the Panjâb the leaves of the Siras (Acacia sirisa) are a powerful charm. In many villages in Upper India they will be seen hung up on the rope crossing the village cattle path, when epidemics prevail among men or animals. [292] In this case the effect of the charm is enhanced by adding to them a tile covered with some hocus-pocus formula, written by a Faqîr, and rude models of a pair of wooden sandals, a mud rake, a plough-share and other agricultural implements which are considered effectual to scare the demon which brings the plague.

The Mango.

The Mango is used in much the same way. It is, as we shall see, used in making the aspersion at rural ceremonies. The leaves are hung up at marriages in garlands on the house door, and on the shed in which the rite is performed, and after the wedding is over these are carefully consigned to running water by the bride and bridegroom. It is also used as a charm. Before you see a flower on a mango tree shut your eyes and make some one lead you to a tree in flower. Rub the flowers into your hands, and you thus acquire the power of curing scorpion stings by moving your hand over the place. But this power lasts only for one year, and must be renewed when the season of flowers again returns.

The Tulasî.

The Tulasî or holy basil (Ocymum sanctum) is closely connected with the worship of Vishnu. At the last census over eleven hundred persons in the North-Western Provinces recorded themselves as worshippers of the plant. It is known in Sanskrit as Haripriya, or "the beloved of Vishnu," and Bhûtaghni, or "destroyer of demons." It seems to owe the favour with which it is regarded to its aromatic and healing properties. Vishnu, so runs the legend, was fascinated with the beauty of Vrindâ, the wife of Jâlandhara, to redeem him from whose enthralment, the gods applied to Lakshmî, Gaurî, and Swadhâ. Each gave them seed to sow where Vishnu was enchanted. The seeds given by the deities sprang up as the Dhâtrî or Emblica Myrobalan, the Mâlatî or jasmine, and the Tulasî, or basil, and appearing in female form they attracted the admiration of the deity and saved him from the wiles of Vrindâ. [293]

Another legend comes from Bombay. [294] Tulasî was daughter of the Râja Dharmadhwaja, and by her devotions gained the favour of Vishnu, but she married the demon Sankhachûda, who by the virtue of his wife overcame the gods. They appealed to Vishnu, but he could not help them, as the demon was his votary. At last it was resolved that he should personate her husband and gain her love. When Tulasî was aware of the deception she was about to curse him, but he pacified her by promising to marry her and make her name immortal. He added that those women who married an image of him to the Tulasî on the eleventh day of the month Kârttik would prosper.

The Tulasî is also connected with Sîtâ and Rukminî, and the prayer to her is: "I adore that Tulasî, in whose roots are all the places of pilgrimage, in whose centre are all the deities, and in whose upper branches are all the Vedas." The plant is specially worshipped by women after bathing, and more particularly at the full moon of Kârttik, if the bathing be in the Ganges. The chief ceremony is, however, the marriage of the infant Krishna to the plant, which is carried out by pious people, often at a considerable cost, in accordance with the standard ritual.

The Palâsa.

The Palâsa or Dhâk is sacred, partly on account of its use in producing the sacred fire, and partly because its orange blossoms are used to dye the coloured dust and water thrown about at the Holî festival. It is supposed to be in some way connected with the Soma, and by one account was produced from the feather of the falcon imbued with the Soma. Its trifoliate leaves represent the trident, or the three great gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, or birth, life, and death. The leaves are used to form the platters employed at various feasts and religious rites; the wood in the Yûpa, or sacrificial pole, and in the funeral pyre.

In one respect it resembles the rowan, which is also a sacred tree, but why this is so has been much debated. "Possibly the inaccessible rocks on which the tree is not unfrequently found to grow and the conspicuous colour of its berries may have counted for something, but this falls decidedly short of a solution of the question. One kind of answer that would meet the case, provided it be countenanced by facts, may be briefly indicated, namely, that the berries of the rowan were used in some early period in the brewing of an intoxicating drink, or better still, of the first intoxicating drink known to the Teuto-Aryan Celts." [295] The connection between the Palâsa and the Soma perhaps indicates that this may have been the case. It was again a Vedic custom to drive the cows from their calves by striking them with a rod of a Palâsa tree. In Yorkshire it used to be the custom for "farmers to have whip-stocks of rowan tree wood, and it was held that thus supplied, they were safe against having their draught fixed, or their horses made restive by a witch. If ever a draught came to a standstill, then the nearest witchwood tree was resorted to, and a stick cut to flog the horses on with, to the discomfiture of the malevolent witch who had caused the stoppage." In some parts of Scotland the milkmaid carries a switch of the magical rowan to expel the demon which sometimes enters the cow; and in Germany, striking the cow with this magical wand is believed to render her fertile. [296]

The Bel.

The Bel (Aegle marmelos) is specially dedicated to Siva, because it has three leaflets in the leaf, and because of its medicinal value. Siva is called Bilvadanda, "he with a staff of the Bel wood," and its leaves are used in his service. Its leaves laid on the Lingam cool and refresh the heated deity. The wood is one of those used for the sacrificial post. Its fruit is called Srîphala, because it is supposed to have been produced from the milk of the goddess Srî.

The Bamboo.

The bamboo is sacred on account of its manifold uses and because among the jungle races fire is produced by the friction of two strips of bamboo. Besides this it contains a sort of manna, known as Bânslochan or Tabashîr, which is in high repute as a medicine. The flowering of the bamboo is generally regarded as a sure sign of famine. The bamboo often appears in the folk-tales. Thus in one of the tales of Somadeva, [297] "they asked Sumeru about the origin of the bow, and he said: 'Here is a great and glorious wood of bamboo canes; whatever bamboos are cut from it and thrown into this lake, become great and wonderful bows; and those bows have been acquired by several of the gods, and by Asuras and Gandharvas and distinguished Vidyadhâras.'" In one of the Santâl tales, [298] the bamboo grows from the grave of the murdered girl, and remonstrates when the Jogi goes to cut it, but out of a piece he finally makes a flute of wondrous sweetness. Among the jungle races the bamboo often is used to make the poles of the marriage shed, while the central post is made of the wood of the holy Siddh tree, the Hardwickia binata.

In Gujarât, [299] the Turis, to keep off evil spirits, lay two slips of bamboo in the lying-in room. The Prabhus of Pûna at their marriages put bamboo baskets on the heads of the bride, bridegroom, and guests. The Mhârs and Mângs make the married pair stand in bamboo baskets. The Muâsis of Bengal make the wedded pair revolve round a bamboo post. The Birhors worship Darha in the form of a split bamboo; the Kachâris and Gâros worship a bamboo planted in the ground; the Râjmahâl hill-man worships three bamboos with streamers, as Chaunda Gusâîn. [300] The use of the bamboo decorated with a streamer as a perch for the deity is common at all low-caste shrines in Northern India.

The Sandal.

The Sandal, again, in the form of powder or paste is very largely used in all Hindu rites, and in making the marks characteristic of sect or caste. "In Bombay, every evening, the Pârsis burn sandal chips in their houses, as the smell of sandal is supposed to drive away evil spirits, and the Pûna Ghadsis or musicians say that they are sprung from sandal wood, because it is one of their tribal guardians. [301]"

The Birch.

The Bhûrja, a species of birch, is also sacred. It, too, is supposed to drive away evil spirits. Its bark, now called Bhojpatra, is used for writing charms, and for other mystic purposes. When a corpse is burnt by low-caste people, when a person dies at the hands of an executioner, when he dies on a bed, or when he is drowned and his body cannot be found, a rite known as Palâsvidhi is performed. An effigy of the deceased is made, in which twigs of the Palâsa tree represent the bones, a cocoanut or Bel fruit the head, pearls or cowry shells the eyes, and a piece of birch bark or the skin of a deer the cuticle. It is then filled up with Urad pulse instead of flesh and blood, and a presiding priest recites a spell to bring life into the image, which is symbolized by putting a lighted lamp close to the head. When the light goes out, life is believed to be extinct and the funeral rites are performed in the regular way, the only exception being that the period of impurity lasts for three, instead of ten days.

Other Sacred Trees.

The number of these trees and plants which scare evil spirits or are invested with other mystic qualities is infinite. We may close the catalogue with the Babûl or Kîkar (Acacia Arabica), which when cut pours out a reddish juice. One of these trees, when the Musalmâns tried to cut it near a shrine at Lahore, is said to have poured out drops of blood as a warning. But on the whole it is an unlucky tree, and the resort of evil spirits. If you throw water for thirteen days successively on a Babûl tree, you will get the evil spirits which inhabit it into your power. They tell of a man who did this near Sahâranpur, who when taken to his cremation, no sooner was the light set to his pyre than he got up and walked home, and is alive to this day. His neighbours naturally look on his proceedings with a certain degree of suspicion. The ghost of a man burnt with this wood will not rest quietly, and any one who rests on a bed made of it is afflicted with evil dreams. An old servant of mine once solemnly remonstrated against the use of such a bed by his master. Such a bed, he remarked, should be only used for a clergyman guest, who by virtue of his profession is naturally protected against such uncanny visitations.

Tree Marriages.

We now come to discuss the curious custom of marriages to trees. This prevails widely throughout Northern India. Thus, in some parts of Kângra, if a betrothed but as yet unmarried girl can succeed in performing the marriage ceremony with the object of her choice round a fire made in the jungle with certain wild plants, her betrothal is annulled, and this informal marriage is recognized. [302] In the Panjâb a Hindu cannot be legally married a third time. So, if he wishes to take a third wife, he is married to a Babûl tree (Acacia Arabica), or to the Akh plant (Asclepia gigantea), first, so that the wife he subsequently marries is counted as his fourth, and the evil consequences of marrying a third time are thus avoided. [303] In Bengal, writes Dr. Buchanan, [304] "Premature marriage is considered so necessary to Hindu ideas of prosperity, that even the unfortunate children who are brought up for prostitution are married with all due ceremony to a plantain tree, before the age when they would be defiled by remaining single." In the North-Western Provinces, among some of the higher classes of Brâhmans, if a man happens to lose one or two wives and is anxious to marry a third, the ceremony of his third marriage is first gone through with an Akh plant. The family priest takes the intending bridegroom to the fields where there are Akh plants and repeats the marriage formula. This is known as Arka Vivâh, or Akh marriage, and it is believed that the plant itself dies soon after being married. In Oudh, it is very unlucky to marry a couple if the ruling stars of the youth form a more powerful combination than those of the female. The way to get out of the difficulty is to marry the girl first to a Pîpal tree. In the Panjâb, rich people who have no children marry a Brâhman to a Tulasî plant. The pseudo-father of the bride treats the Brâhman ever afterwards as his son-in-law, which, it is needless to say, is a very good thing for the Brâhman. [305] If the birth of a child does not follow this ceremony, they have good reason for apprehending that a messenger from Yama, the god of death, will harass them on their way to the spirit world.

In Bombay, among the Kudva Kunbis of Gujarât, when there are certain difficulties in the marriage of a girl, she is married to a mango or some other fruit tree. Mr. Campbell [306] accounts for this on the principle that a spirit fears trees, especially fruit trees. Among another branch of the same tribe, when a girl is marriageable and a bridegroom cannot be found, the practice is to substitute a bunch of flowers, and the marriage ceremony proceeds. Next day, by which time the flowers have begun to fade, they are thrown into a well, and the bride of yesterday is considered a widow. As a widow can marry at any time without social discredit, the parents find a husband for her at their leisure. [307]

So in Bengal, the Rautiyas before the wedding go through the form of marriage to a mango tree. [308] Among the Mundâri Kols, "the bride and bridegroom are well anointed with turmeric, and wedded, not to each other, but the bride to a Mahua tree, and the groom to a mango, or both to mango trees. They are made to touch the tree with red lead, and then to clasp it, and they are tied to it." [309] Among the Kurmîs, the bridegroom on the wedding morning is first married to a mango tree. He embraces the tree, is for a time tied to it in a peculiar manner with a thread, and he daubs it with red lead. Then the thread is removed from the tree, and is used to attach some of the leaves to the bridegroom's wrist. The bride is similarly wedded to a Mahua tree. [310]

Similarly in the Himâlayas, if anyone desires to marry a third time, whether his other wives are alive or not, he is married to the Akh plant. He builds an altar near the plant, or brings a branch home and plants it near the altar. The regular marriage ceremony is then performed, and a thread is wound ten times round the plant with the recitation of appropriate verses. Four days the plant remains where it was fixed, and on the fifth day the celebrant is entitled to commence the marriage ceremony with his third wife. Similarly, a person is married to an earthen jar, when from some conjunction of the planets the omens are unfavourable, or when, from some bodily or mental defect, no one will marry the boy or girl. The usual ceremonies are gone through, and the neck of the boy or girl is connected by a string with the neck of the vessel, and water is sprinkled over them with a brush made of five leaves. [311]

In Nepâl every Newâr girl is, while a child, married to a Bel fruit, which, after the ceremony, is thrown into some sacred river. When she arrives at puberty a husband is selected for her, but should the marriage prove unpleasant, she can divorce herself by the simple process of placing a betel-nut under her husband's pillow, and walking off. Widows are allowed to re-marry; in fact, a Newâr woman is never a widow, as the Bel fruit to which she first married is supposed to be always in existence. [312]

Before considering a possible explanation of this group of customs, we may note other instances of pseudo-marriages. We have, in the first place, instances of the marriage of girls to a god. "In the Gurgâon District, in the Rewâri Tahsîl, at the village of Bâs Doda, a fair is held on the 26th of Chait and the two following days. I was told that formerly girls of the Dhînwar class used to be married to the god at these festivals, and that they always died soon afterwards, but that of late years the practice has been discontinued." [313]

Again, we have some traces of the allied custom of compulsory religious prostitution. It is said that Santâl girls are required to submit to compulsory prostitution once in their lives at Telkûpi Ghât. "It is said that the custom originally arose from the killing of a girl by her parents for incontinence; since when, girls have been permitted to do as they please, and what was once permissive has become compulsory." [314] There is no reference to this in Colonel Dalton's account of the Santâls, and Mr. Beglar's authority is not quite satisfactory. But on the analogy of similar rites in Babylon, as described by Herodotus, it is very likely that such a custom once prevailed. There is some evidence that similar customs once prevailed at the temple of Jaggannâth and other Indian shrines.

We have, again, folk-tale references to the same custom in a tradition of the Vallabhachârya sect of the daughter of a banker, who, by her devotion to him, won the love of the god Krishna in the form of an image. Finally the deity revealed himself, and she went with him to Brindaban and remained with her divine husband till he carried her off to the heaven of Vishnu. This, however, is hardly perhaps more than an example of the mystic union of the god with his worshippers, which forms such a large part of the Vaishnava hagiology, and is familiar in the tales of Krishna and the Gopîs.

There is, again, among children in the neighbourhood of Sahâranpur, a game which may be a survival of some more primitive rite. At the Tîj festival, which occurs in the rainy season, girls dressed in their best go to a tank near the city. After dropping offerings into the water in honour of Khwâja Khizr, they divide into two parties, each of which selects a leader, one of whom is known as the bride and the other a bridegroom. The latter is decorated with a paper crown decked with tinsel. The clothes of the pair are knotted together, and they are made to walk round a Tulasî plant or a Pîpal tree on the banks of the tank, in a mock form of the marriage ritual. Meanwhile each party chaffs the other, saying, "Your bride (or bridegroom) is one-eyed." They return home with merriment of this kind, and when they come to the house the knot tied in the garments of the pair is unloosed.

We have, again, instances of the marriages of, or to animals. In parts of the Panjâb, if a man have lost two or three wives in succession, he gets a woman to catch a bird and adopt it as her daughter. He then marries the bird, and immediately pays over the bride-gift to the woman that adopted his bird-bride, which he divorces. After this he can get himself married to another woman, and she will probably live. [315]

So, there have been many instances of Râjas marrying animals with the customary rites. Some years ago, one of the Gâekwârs of Baroda spent a large sum in marrying some favourite pigeons, and a Râja of Nadiya spent a lâkh of rupees in marrying two monkeys.

Lastly, there are numerous survivals of what can hardly be anything else but tree marriage. Among the Bâwariyas, a vagrant tribe in Sirsa, the bride and bridegroom go outside the village to a Jand tree, which, as we have seen already, is regarded as sacred, move round it seven times, and then cut off a branch with an axe. [316] In a Bhîl marriage, the pair walk round the Salyâra tree, which is placed in the marriage booth, twelve times. [317] We have a similar custom among most of the menial tribes. The Kols make the marriage booth of nine bamboo poles, with a bamboo or a branch of the Siddh tree as the central post. As the bridegroom smears the parting of the bride's hair with red lead, he makes a daub of the same substance on the tree. Much the same custom prevails among all the inferior castes. The worship of trees at marriage prevails in Madras, where some Râjas worship at their marriages the fire and the Vahni tree, a twig of which is used as an arrow at the hunting feast at the Navarâtri or Dasahra. [318]

On the whole, it seems probable that this custom of pseudo-marriages may be based on various principles. The popular explanation of the custom is, as we have seen, that it is intended to avoid the curse of widowhood, the tree-husband being always alive; the woman, even if her husband die, can never be a widow, nor can the parents be liable to the contempt which, according to popular Hindu belief, awaits those who keep a girl who has reached maturity unmarried. But when we find the same custom prevailing among races who habitually permit pre-nuptial infidelity, and among whom every marriageable widow is either subjected to the levirate or made over to a stranger, it seems obvious that this cannot be the original explanation of the practice.

Again, according to Mr. Frazer, who has collected numerous examples of the custom, "it is difficult to separate from totemism the custom observed by totem clans in Bengal of marrying the bride and bridegroom to trees before they are married to each other." [319]

But the idea that, as we have seen in one of the cases of tree marriages, the tree itself is supposed to die soon after the ceremony, seems to point to the fact that the marriage may be intended to divert to the tree some evil influence, which would otherwise attach to the wedded pair. We have an instance of a somewhat analogous practice from Bombay. "Among the Konkan Kunbis, when a woman is in labour and cannot get a speedy delivery, some gold ornament from her hair is taken to a Rûî plant (the Dhâk--Callotropis gigantea of Northern India), and after digging at its roots, one of the roots is taken out, and the ornament is buried in its stead. The root is then brought home and put in the hair of the woman in labour. It is supposed that by this means the woman gets speedy delivery. As soon as she is delivered of a child, the root is taken from her hair and brought back to the Rûî plant, and after digging at its root the ornament is taken out and the root placed in its former place." [320] The idea seems to be that the evil influence hindering parturition is thus transferred to the plant. And this may be one explanation of the practice where, as we have seen, a man is married to a bird, or so on, when his former wives have died. The bird acts as the scape-animal, and carries the disease spirit away with it.

Lastly, we have seen instances in which the wedded pair are made to clasp the tree or are tied to it in some special way. There are numerous cases in which women, in order to procure offspring, clasp an idol, like that of Hanumân and one of the other guardian deities. The clasping of the tree at marriage may possibly be a sort of sympathetic magic to bring on the pair the fertility and power of reproduction, of which vegetable life is the well-known symbol. We have the same principle of the wedding of the grove to its well, and every Hindu who goes to the expense of making a tank, does not drink of its waters until he has married the tank to a plantain or some other tree growing on its banks.

Tree and Serpent Worship.

In the story of the king and his son, told in the Baitâl Pachîsi, the king supplicates the sacred tree to give him a son. The request is granted, and the king then implores the tree to make his people happy; the result was that poor wretches, hitherto living in the woods, came forth and concerted measures to seize his kingdom. Rather than shed blood, the old king, his queen, and his son retired to a lofty mountain. There the son finds something white lying under a mimosa tree. On inquiry he learnt that it is a heap of serpents' bones left there by Garuda, who comes daily to feed on serpents. On hearing this, the king goes towards a temple, but is arrested by the cry of a woman, who says: "My son to-day will be eaten by Garuda." She and her people were, in fact, serpents in human shape. The king was moved to pity, and as in the famous legend of Buddha and the tigress, he offered to expose himself to Garuda in the room of her son. This is discovered; Garuda releases the king, and at his request re-animates the serpents to whom the bones belong. [321]

Here we have an example of the combination of tree and serpent worship, and it would be easy to adduce more instances, as has been done by Mr. Ferguson and other writers of his school. But in dealing with this phase of belief much caution is required. As Dr. Tylor observes: "Serpent-worship unfortunately fell years ago into the hands of speculative writers, who mixed it up with occult philosophies, Druidical mysteries, and that portentous nonsense called the Arkite symbolism, till now sober students hear the very name of ophiolatry with a shiver." [322]

It is almost needless to say that snake-worship prevails largely in Northern India. The last census showed in the North-Western Provinces over twenty-five thousand Nâga worshippers; one hundred and twenty-three persons recorded themselves as votaries of Gûga, the snake god. There are also a certain number who worship Sânp Deotâ, or the snake godling, and Ahîran, another deity of the same class, who is worshipped in Sultânpur by daily offerings of red lead, water, and rice. Sokha, said to be the ghost of a Brâhman killed by a snake, has nearly fourteen thousand worshippers. In the Panjâb, again, there are over thirty-five thousand special votaries of the snake godlings, of which the great majority worship Gûga.

That the cultus of the snake has been derived from aboriginal beliefs appears tolerably certain. The Hindus of Vedic times looked on the serpent with fear and dislike. It was impersonated as Ahi or Vritra, the snake demon which brings darkness and drives away the kindly rain. The regular snake-worship, as we now find it, was obviously of a later date.

It does not appear difficult to disentangle the ideas on which snake-worship is based. To begin with, the snake is dreaded and revered on account of the mysterious fear which is associated with it, its stealthy habits, its sinuous motion, the cold fixity of its gaze, the protrusion of its forked tongue, the suddenness and deadliness of its attacks. It would be particularly dreaded by women, whose habits of walking barefoot in fields in the early dawn, and groping in dark corners of their huts, render them specially exposed to its malice. The chief basis of the cultus would then be fear, as in the case of the tiger and other beasts of prey.

It would soon be discovered that there were various harmless snakes which would, as house-hunters, come to be identified with the ancestral ghosts as the protectors of houses and goods. The power of controlling and taming the more venomous snakes would then be discovered, and the snake-charmer would come to be regarded as the wisest of mankind, as a wizard, and finally as a priest. We have thus three aspects under which the snake is worshipped by many savage races--as a dreaded enemy, as the protector of home and treasure, as the accompaniment and attribute of wisdom. The village temple would be often in early times a storehouse of treasure, and the snake, respected as its guardian, would finally, as in Kashmîr, be installed there as a god.

Next, we have the early connection between the serpent and the powers of nature, the cloud and the rain, as appears in the familiar Vedic legend of Indra and the Dragon Ahi, and Seshanâga, the great world serpent, which appears in so many of the primitive mythologies.

The serpent would again receive respect as the emblem of life; his shape would, as in many forms of primitive ornament, be associated with the ring, as a symbol of eternity; he is excessively long-lived, and periodically renews his life.

He has, further, as in the Saiva cultus, become associated with phallicism, and with the sexual powers, as in the Adam legend. "The serpent round the neck of Siva denotes the endless cycle of recurring years, and a second necklace of skulls about his person, with numerous other serpents, symbolizes the eternal revolution of ages and the successive dissolution and regeneration of the races of mankind." [323]

Lastly, the cultus may have a totemistic basis. As Strabo describes the Ophiogeneis or serpent races of Phrygia actually retaining physical affinity with the snakes to whom they were to be believed to be allied, the Cheros of the eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces and the Bais Râjputs of Oudh profess to be descended from the Great Serpent. Gautama Buddha himself is said to have been of serpent lineage.

But the great serpent race was that of the Nâgas, to whom much ill-considered argument and crude speculation have been devoted. According to one theory they were Skythic emigrants from Central Asia, but whether antecedent or subsequent to the so-called Aryan inroad is disputed. They seem to have been accustomed to use the serpent as a national symbol, and hence became identified with the snake. Some of the myths seem to imply that they suffered persecution at the hands of the Brâhmans, such as the tale of the burning of the Khândava forest, the opening scenes of the Mahâbhârata, and the exploits of the youthful Krishna. They are, again, associated with Buddhism on monuments like those of Ajanta, and another theory would make them out to be the Dasyus, or aboriginal races of Upper India, who were the first to adopt Buddhism and were exterminated in the Brâhmanical revival. Little, in fact, is known of them, save that they may have been early worshippers of the snake, may have embraced Buddhism, and may have introduced the worship into India from some northern home. [324] But Mr. Ferguson's theory that snake-worship was of purely Turanian origin is, to say the least, very doubtful, and his belief that Saivism is antagonistic to snake-worship, and that Vaishnavism, which he regards as a modification of Buddhism, encourages it, is opposed by the numerous examples of the connection of the serpent with the Lingam.

Seshanâga.

Below the seven Pâtâlas, according to the Vishnu Purâna, is Vishnu incarnated as Seshanâga, and known by the name Ananta, or "Endless." He has a thousand heads adorned with the mystical Swâstika, and in each head a jewel to give light. He is accompanied by Varunî, the goddess of wine (who has nowadays been replaced by Madain, who is venerated by Chamârs in Oudh), supports the world on his head, holds in one hand a pestle and in the other a plough, which, as we shall see later on, connects him with agriculture.

Snake Shrines.

In various places snakes are provided with special shrines. Thus, in Garhwâl, Seshanâga is honoured at Pandukeswar; Bhekal Nâg at Ratgâon; Sangal Nâg at Talor; Bânpa Nâg at Margâon, and many others of the same kind. [325] In fact, all along the Himâlaya the worship extensively prevails. Kailang Nâg is the chief Himâlayan godling, and as the Vedic Ahi controls the clouds, so he gives fine weather. A victim is killed, and one of his disciples, after drinking the blood, gets into a state of afflatus. Finally, he gasps out that the sacrifice is accepted, and falls down in a state of exhaustion. The old shrine to the serpent deity at Kângra, known as Baghsu Nâg, has been converted into a Saiva temple under the name of Baghsunâtha, another instance of the adoption of strange deities into orthodox Hinduism.

"The Nâg is specially the guardian of cattle and water-springs. According to the legend, the valleys of Kashmîr and Nepâl were in some remote period the abode of Nâgas. The milk of a cow is usually presented to a Nâg, and goats and sheep are usually sacrificed to him, as to other godlings. So far as I am aware, the only place in the Himâlaya where the living snake is worshipped is at the foot of the Rotung pass." [326] The Nepâl serpent king is Karkotaka, who dwelt in the lake Nâgavâsa, and Siva in the form of Karkotaka Nâga has a temple at Barha Kotra in the Bânda District.

In one of the Nepâl temples is a representation of a Nâg Kanyâ, a serpent maiden or mermaid, sitting on a tortoise. [327] This serpent maiden constantly appears in Indian folk-lore. Such is Vijayâvatî, daughter of Gandamâlin, one of the snake kings, who is of surpassing loveliness, rescues and marries the hero. She is represented by the Melusina of European folk-lore, and one of her kindred survived to our own day, to appear as Elsie Venner in one of the finest novels of this generation. [328]

Curious as it may appear, all the Kashmîr temples were originally surrounded by artificial tanks, constructed in order to propitiate the Nâgas. Ancient stones covered with figures of snakes are occasionally to be seen worked up into the walls of modern buildings. Abul Fazl says that in his time there were nearly seven hundred figures of snake gods existing in Kashmîr. The snake, it is needless to say, is a common emblem in temples all over the country. An ancient temple at Bilâspur in the Central Provinces has, as its only image, that of the cobra. [329]

Snake-worship appears constantly in history and legend. There is a passage in Plutarch from which it appears to have been the custom to sacrifice an old woman (previously condemned to death for some crime) to the serpent gods by burying her alive on the banks of the Indus. Ktesias also mentions the worship of snakes, and in the Buddhist legends snakes are often referred to as the guardian deities of towns. [330]

In the folk-tales, Naravâhanadatta worships snakes in a grove sacred to them, and Bhîmabhatta goes to the temple of the chief of the snakes, which he finds full of long wreaths of flowers in form like serpents, and a great lake sacred to Vâsuki, studded with red lotuses, which seemed like clouds of smoke from the fume of snake poison. [331]

A curious legend tells how Kadrû and Vinatâ were the two wives of the patriarch Kasyapa, the former being the mother of the serpent race, and the other of the birds. A discussion arose between them regarding the colour of the tails of the horses of the sun, Vinatâ insisting that they were white and Kadrû that they were black. It was agreed that whichever of the two was proved to be wrong should serve the other. So Kadrû contrived to fasten one of her black snakes on to the back of one of the horses, and Vinatâ, thinking this was the real tail, accepted defeat; so the snakes rule the birds for ever.

Nahusha, according to one version of his legend, aspired to the love of the queen of India when her husband concealed himself because he had killed a Brâhman. A thousand Rishis bore the litter of the presumptuous sinner through the air, and when in his pride he touched Agastya Muni with his foot, the offended sage cursed him, and he became a serpent. Finally he was pardoned by the intercession of Yudhisthira, threw off his serpent form, and was raised to the heaven of the gods.

Near Jait, in the Mathura District, is a tank with the broken statue of a hooded serpent in it. Once upon a time a Râja married a princess from a distant land, and wished to bring her home with him. She refused to come until he announced his lineage. Her husband told her that she would regret her curiosity, but she persisted. At last he took her to the river and warned her again, but in vain. Then he told her not to be alarmed at anything she saw, adding that if she did so, she would lose him. Saying this, he began to descend slowly into the water, all the time trying to dissuade her, till the water rose to his neck. Then, after a last attempt to induce her to abandon her curiosity, he dived and reappeared in the form of a Nâga, and raising his head over the water, he said, "This is my lineage. I am a Nâgavansi." His wife could not suppress an exclamation of grief, on which the Nâga was turned into stone, where he lies to this day. Here we have another instance of the consequences of the violation of the curiosity taboo. [332]

The town of Nigohan in the Lucknow District is said to have been founded by Raja Nâhuk of the Chandravansi line of kings. Near it is a large tank, in which the legend says that the Râja, transformed into a snake for the sin of killing a Brâhman, was compelled to live. Here at length the Pândava brothers, in their wanderings after their battle with the Kauravas, came, and as they went to draw water, the serpent put to each of them five questions touching the vanity of human wishes and the advantages of absorption from the world. Four out of the five brethren failed to answer and were dragged under the water, but the riddle was solved by the fifth. The spell was thus loosed, and the Râja's deliverer had come. The Pându put his ring round the body of the serpent, and he was restored to human form. In his gratitude he performed a great sacrifice, and to this day the cultivators digging small wells in the centre of the tank in the dry season, come across the burnt barley, rice, and betel-nuts used in the sacrifices. [333]

The old Buddhist traveller thus describes the serpent deity in the temple at Sankisa in the Farrukhâbâd District--"A white-eared dragon is the patron of this body of the priests. It is he who causes fertilizing and seasonable showers of rain to fall within their country, and preserves it from plagues and calamity, and so causes the priesthood to dwell in security. The priests, in gratitude for these favours, have erected a dragon chapel, and within it placed a seat for his accommodation; and, moreover, they make special contributions in the shape of religious offerings to provide the dragon with food. Towards the end of each season of rest, the dragon incontinently assumes the form of a little serpent, both of whose ears are white. The body of priests, recognizing him, place in the midst for his use a copper vessel full of cream. The serpent then proceeds to come down from the highest part of the alcove, all the while moving, as though he would pay his respects to all those around him. He then suddenly disappears. He makes his appearance once every year." [334]

According to Gen. Cunningham, the only spot which can be identified with any certainty at Sankisa is the tank of the Nâga, which still exists to the south-east of the ruins. The name of the Nâga is Kârewar, which appears to mean "the black one," and that of the tank Kandaiya Tâl. Milk is still offered to him on every day of May, the Nâgpanchamî festival in August, and at any other time when rain is wanted. [335]

There are many instances of this control of the Nâga over the weather. Thus, in Nepâl, when Râja Gunkamdeva committed incest, the gods in their wrath withheld the rain. Finally the Râja managed to catch the great Nâga Karkotaka, and the other Nâgas came and worshipped him and gave him each a likeness of himself drawn with his own blood, and declared that whenever there was a drought hereafter, plentiful rain would fall as soon as these pictures were worshipped.

So, Gorakhnâtha confined the nine Nâgas, and there was a drought until Matsyendranâtha appeared and released them, on which the clouds gave rain. [336]

The plan of propitiating the Nâga with an offering of milk is found also in the case of the Durham legend of the Lambton worm and the dragon of Deerhurst in Gloucestershire. [337]

The sacred dragons of this kind are innumerable. The Buddhist cave at Pabhosa in the Allahâbâd District was the home of a monster of this class, who was subdued by Buddha. [338] That in the dragon tank at Râmagrâma used to assume the form of a Brâhman. [339] Dr. Buchanan tells of another at Bhâgalpur. "They showed me a hole in a rock opening into a hollow space close by the path leading up to their village. They said that this hole was the abode of a very large serpent, which they considered a kind of god. In cold weather they never saw it, but in the hot season it was constantly observed lying in the hollow before its den. The people pass by it without apprehension, thinking it understands their language, and would on no account injure one of them, should even a child or a drunken person fall on it." [340]

But all such snakes are not friendly. In the Hitopadesa, the faithful mungoose takes the place in the legend of Bethgelert of the hound and kills the deadly snake. Some reference to this famous folk-tale will be made in another connection. Aghâsura, "the evil demon," the king of the serpents, tried to devour the divine infant Krishna. When he and his foster-father Nanda were asleep together, a huge boa-constrictor laid hold of Nanda by the toe, and would speedily have devoured him, but Krishna, hearing his cries, ran to his side and lightly set his foot on the monster's head. At the very touch the serpent was transformed, and assumed the figure of a lovely youth; "for years ago a Ganymede of Heaven's Court, by name Sudarsana, in pride of beauty and exalted birth, had vexed the holy sage Angiras when in deep contemplation, by dancing backwards and forwards before him, and by his curses had been metamorphosed into a snake, in that vile shape to expiate his offence, until the advent of Krishna." [341] We have already spoken of another famous Mathura snake, the Nâga of Jait, whose tail is supposed to reach underground to Brindaban, seven miles away. [342] The curious dragon cave at Kausambhi at Allahâbâd was one of the last notable discoveries of the Archæological Survey. [343]

The Snake Gods.

Besides the sacred Nâgas there are the regular snake gods. The serpent deity of Benares is Nâgîswar, who is represented by a serpent twining round the chief idol, and like his kindred rules the weather. The Nâg Kuân, or dragon well, is one of the oldest shrines in the city. [344] Târâ is the snake goddess of the Kols, and the Khândhs call her Târâ Penu, the heavenly "star snake." Vâsuki, the "abider," now known as Bâsuk Nâg, has many shrines, and in all of them, as at Dâraganj, near Allahâbâd, described by Sir Monier-Williams, [345] the priest in charge is always a man of low caste, a fact pointing to the non-Aryan character of the worship. He forms one of the triad of the snake gods which rule the snakes of earth and hell, his fellows being Sesha and Takshaka, "he who cuts off." Vâsuki often appears in the folk-tales. We find him resisting Garuda, the destroyer of his subjects. His brother's son Kirtisena is, according to one legend, a Brâhman, and weds a mortal maiden by the Gandharva form; his eldest brother Vasunemi presents a benevolent Savara with a magic lute; Vâsuki himself marries the princess Yasodharâ, and their son is Priyadarsana. Vâsuki has a thousand ears. Once he served the gods by becoming the rope which the mount Mandara was whirled round, and the sea was churned and produced Srî or Lakshmî, goddess of wealth. [346] The foot of the celebrated iron pillar at Delhi was driven so deep in order that it might rest on the head of Vâsuki. A Brâhman told the king that this would secure the stability of his kingdom. The Râja doubted this, and had the pillar dug up, when its base was found wet with the blood of the serpent king. Owing to the incredulity of the Râja it could never again be firmly fixed, and his want of faith led to the ultimate downfall of his dynasty. The same tale has reached the Himâlaya, and is told of the foundation of Almora. [347]

The Sinhas.

Next come the Sinhas, or snake godlings of the Panjâb and the western parts of the North-Western Provinces. "They are males, and though they cause fever they are not very malevolent, often taking away pain. They have got great power over milch cattle, and the milk of the eleventh day after calving is sacred to them, and libations of milk (as in the case of the Sankisa dragon) are always acceptable. They are generally distinguished by some colour, the most commonly worshipped being Kâlî, 'the black one,' Hari, 'green,' Bhûra, 'grey,' Sinh. But the diviner will often declare a fever to be caused by some Sinh no one has ever heard of before, but to whom a shrine must be built. And so they multiply in a most perplexing manner. Dead men also have a way of becoming snakes--a fact which is revealed in a dream, when again a shrine must be built. If a peasant sees a snake he will salute it, and if it bite him, he or his heirs, as the case may be, will build a shrine on the spot to prevent the recurrence of such an occurrence. They are the servants of Vâsuki Nâga, King of Pâtâla, or Tartarus, and their worship is certainly connected with that of the Pitris or ancestors, though it is difficult to see exactly in what the connection lies." [348]

Connection of Snakes with Ancestor-worship.

The connection is thus explained by Mr. Spencer: "The other self of the dead relative is supposed to come back occasionally to the old house; how else is it possible of the survivors sleeping there to see him in their dreams? Here are creatures which commonly, unlike wild animals, come into houses; come in, too, secretly at night. The implication is clear. That snakes which specially do this are the returned dead, is inferred by people in Asia, Africa, and America; the haunting of houses being the common trait of the kind of snakes reverenced and worshipped." [349] The benevolent household snake, which in the folk-tales assists the hero and protects the family of which he is the guardian, thus represents the soul of some deceased ancestor which has taken up its residence there. That the dead do appear as snakes is familiar in European folk-lore. Thus, for instance, the pious Æneas saw his father Anchises in the snake which crept from his tomb. We have already come across the same idea in the case of the Satî. It was an old European idea that this household snake, if not conciliated, and when dead buried under the threshold, a sacred place, prevented conception. [350]

Deified Snake Heroes.

We have already mentioned the regular snake godling Gûga. With him are often worshipped his father Jaur or Jewar Sinh, and Arjan and Sarjan, his twin half-brothers. [351]

Pîpa, the Brâhman, is another deity of the same class in Râjputâna. He was in the habit of giving milk to a serpent whose retreat was on the banks of the Sampu, or Snake Lake. The serpent used in return to present him daily with two pieces of gold. Being obliged to go away on business, he gave instructions to his son to continue the offering; but the youth, deeming it a good opportunity of becoming master of the treasure, took a stick with him, and when the serpent came forth for his expected food, he struck him violently. But the snake managed to retreat into his hole. On his return, the young Brâhman related his adventures to his mother. She was horrified at the account, and forthwith made arrangements for sending her son away out of danger. But in the morning when she went to call him she found to her horror that her son was dead, and a huge snake lay coiled up beside his body. Pîpa on his return was inconsolable, but, stifling his thoughts of revenge, he propitiated the monster with copious libations of milk. The serpent was appeased, and revealed to Pîpa the treasures which he guarded, commanding him to erect a monument which should transmit the knowledge of the event to future ages. Hence Pîpa has become a sort of snake godling, and the town of Pîpar and the Sampu Lake still by their names commemorate the legend. [352]

This famous tale, which was originally founded on a story in the Panchatantra, has come into European folk-lore through the Gesta Romanorum, and forms an excellent example of a genuine Indian folk-tale which has been naturalized in Western lands. [353] The incident of the animals which produce gold is common both in European and Indian folk-lore. Even Marabhuti in the tale of Somadeva is able to spit gold, and every one knows Grimm's pretty tale of the "Three little men in the wood," in which a piece of gold drops from the mouth of the good girl every time she speaks.

Snake Treasure Guardians.

Snakes throughout folk-lore are the guardians of treasure. [354] The griffins of Scythia guarded the treasures coveted by the Arimaspians; the dragon watched the golden apples of the Hesperides; in the Nibelungenlied the dragon Fafnir keeps guard over a vast treasure of gold, which Sigurd seizes after he has killed the monster. It is a common Indian belief that when a very rich man dies without an heir, he cannot take away his thoughts from his treasure, and returns to guard it in the form of a monstrous serpent. But after a time he becomes tired of this serpent life, and either in a dream, or assuming the human voice, he asks the persons living near the treasure to take it and offer him one of their dearest relatives in return. When some avaricious person complies with the serpent's wishes, he gets possession of the wealth, and the serpent then enters into some other state of existence. Instances of treasure speaking are not uncommon. Some time ago two old ladies, whose houses were divided by a wall, formally applied to me to have the wall excavated in the presence of respectable witnesses, because a treasure-guarding snake was often heard speaking from inside the wall, and begging some one to take over the wealth which was in his charge.

Snake charmers are supposed to have the power of recognizing these serpent treasure guardians, follow them stealthily to their holes, and ask them to point out the deposit. This they will do in consideration of the offering of a drop of blood from the little finger of a first-born son, [355] an obvious survival of human sacrifice, which is constantly found connected with the serpent cultus.