The Development of Hindu Iconography c16.22.2

c16.22.2

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.