The Development of Hindu Iconography c16.22

Language: English

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The next group of folk gods and goddesses retained till much later times their iconographic entity to a greater degree, though here also elaborate developments took place. The Nāgas and the Nāginīs had far more individualistic iconographic traits from the earliest times, and the wide prevalence of the ‘snake-cult’ in India also explains their retention. Before the question of the iconographic types is discussed it is necessary to say a few words about the cult itself. The practice of adoration of the serpent is very primitive in India and it has also some Vedic association (most probably the result of the culture contact of the Aryans with the previous settlers of India). The Ṛgvedic Ahi budhnya, the ‘serpent of the Deep’, representing the beneficent aspect of Ahi Vṛtra, may stand for an atmospheric deity; in this association the serpent form seems to be emphasised more or less figuratively. But many passages in the later Vedas, like the Yajus and the Atharva, especially in the latter, unmistakably refer to the great awe and veneration in which these dread, and at the same time beautiful, objects of nature were held. Various snake-gods are mentioned by name in the Atharvaveda in different contexts,¹ and they are associated in some passages with the Gandharvas, Apsarasas, Puṇyajanas (Yakṣas) and the Manes (VIII, 8, 15: Gandharvāpsarasaḥ sarpāndevānpuṇyajānānpitṛṝn).

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Five among them, Tiraścīrājī, Pṛḍāku, Svajo, Kalmāsagrīvo and Svitro are the respective guardians (rakṣitā) of the southern, western, northern, eastern and upper quarters. Nay, even in one of these Atharvaveda passages (VIII. 10, 29) we find probably the first mention of the epic Takṣaka described here as a descendant of Viśāla (Takṣako Vaiśāleyo). Dhṛtarāṣṭra, the son of Irāvant (Dhṛtaraṣṭra Airāvato) is also named in this connection as the person who milked poison, the subsistence of the serpents, from Virāj (the Universe); Dhṛtarāṣṭra is sometimes the name of a Nāgarāja in later Brahmanical and Buddhist texts. He is the best of the Nāgas according to a Mahābhārata passage (IV. 2, 17), and the later confusion between the two meanings of the word nāga (‘a snake’ and ‘an elephant’) seems to be present in another statement in the same passage that Airāvaṇa (in southern rescension, Airāvata) is the best among elephants. The Great Epic also mentions one Maṇimat, a Nāga, and the name perhaps contains an allusion to the common belief persistent through the ages that the serpents bear jewels on their hoods.¹ The epic and Purāṇic tales about the Nāgas being the sons of Kadru and many other myths associated with them leave little doubt about the fact that popular imagination was greatly excited about them. Their names were many, and as in the case of the Yakṣas and the Yakṣiṇīs, the Nāgas and the Nāginīs were some of the most common among the folk divinities.

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The Gṛhyasūtra account of the ‘ Sarpabali ’, the performance of which annual rite was prolonged for no less a period than the four months of the rains, served ‘ the two-fold purpose of honouring and warding off the snakes ’. The custom of worshipping the Aṣṭanāgas (Vāsuki, Takṣaka, Śeṣa, Ananta and others) and the snake goddess Manasā during the rains and especially in the Nāgapañcamī day (usually falling in the month of Śrāvaṇa), even now current in Bengal, seems to be the popular counterpart of the Sarpabali of the Gṛhyasūtras. The early Buddhist and Jaina religious texts also do not fail to supply us many interesting facts about the wide prevalence of the popular cult in India. Vogel has rightly drawn our attention to the passage in the Cullavagga (V. 6) ‘ in which four tribes of serpent-kings (ahirāja-kulāni) are mentioned ’. The names of the kings are Virūpakkha, Erapatha (Elāpatra), Chabyāputta and Kaṇhagotamaka; of these the first two are well known in Buddhist literature.² The Buddhist texts frequently refer also to various Nāga chiefs like Muca(i)linda, Kāliya, Apalāla and others who came to pay respects to the Buddha on different occasions. There are many early reliefs hailing from different places of India where these themes are illustrated.

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Reference should be made in this connection to the epic and Purāṇic account of Kṛṣṇa’s encounter with Nāga Kāliya of the Mathura region, and his victory over and severe chastisement of the serpent chief, the inner significance of the whole story being the supersession of the more primitive Nāga cult by the newer and more generally accepted Kṛṣṇa cult of the Mathura region (cf. supra, p. 112). A candidate for admission to the Buddhist order was often asked whether he was a Nāga or not (Grünwedel, *Buddhist Art*, p. 44). It may be presumed that the question was put to ascertain whether the particular person was primarily an adherent of the Nāga cult or not.