South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses c12.s2.36

c12.s2.36

Nāgas. The worship of the "serpents" (Nāgas)² is prevalent all over India and particularly so in the west coast of the Madras Presidency, where a corner of a house or of a field is exclusively dedicated to the living cobra so that it may dwell there with its family group. In other parts of the Presidency on a particular day of the year sacred to the Nāgas, milk, fruit and coconut are placed near a snake-hole with the object of feeding the cobra. Nāga-images cut on stones as plain serpents with one, three, five, seven or nine hoods, are also worshipped. Sometimes these have a human body above the navel and a serpent's coils below. Female snakes are said to have one hood only.