The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.23.3

v1.c9.23.3

The head is protected by the spread hood of a five-headed cobra. A modification of this style of pilaster occurs in Illustration, No. 7A. from the temple of Bhagavatī. In it the most prominent figure is a lion standing erect over a mounted elephant, and the capital has two nude females for ornament. The semi-ophide figure on the first pillar is called Nāgakanyā, or *ophidian nymph*. Sometimes two such figures are twined round each other on each shaft, and representation of the kind are very common in different parts of India. They are no doubt the congeners of the semi-piscine Triton of Greece, or the mermaids of Europe, Assyria and Persia, and intended to represent emblematically the descendants of the Nāga race; but it is remarkable that their counterparts are not unknown in other parts of the world. In a Chinese book entitled *The Great Cloud Wheel Rain asking Sutra*, and noticed by Mr. Fergusson, there are four representations of a serpent god,⁹ each of which has "a human head and body, ending in a serpentine form from the waist downwards, but with the much more characteristic accompaniment of a degenerate serpent hood. In the first figure in this Chinese work, the Nāga has three serpents rising behind its head; in the second, five; in the third, seven; and in the last, nine serpents. The lower extremities of the first and second are spotted like serpents, and the fourth" (the one copied in Mr.