The fairy tale for this week is from India:
Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs.
Now here's a portion of the entry "sacred Animals" from
Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism regarding the Cobra:
Nāga: The Snake
Of all the animals worshipped in India, the
cobra
snake has probably been the most important and has the longest history.
A very complex symbolism and history are attached to the sacred snake
in Hinduism, and snake worship has multiple origins and represents a
plurality of traditions. Snake worship includes the direct worship of
the fearsome and dangerous living snakes, worship of the
nāga deities associated with water, and the conception of the vedic Vṛtra connected to the cosmic struggle of the god
Indra. Vṛtra, the enemy of Indra in the
Ṛgveda,
is also called Ahi (“Snake”) and might refer to a primordial snake in
control of the cosmic water. The word for the divine snake is
nāga, which is also the name of tribes of humans, and elephants are called
nāga as well.
Nāga as a name for snakes is used mostly only for cobras as divinities. “The
Nāga
of Indian mythology and folklore,” wrote J.P. Vogel, “is not really the
snake in general, but the cobra raised to the rank of divine being”
(Vogel, 1926, 27). In the early
Ṛgveda and in the
Atharvaveda, the word
ahi is used for snakes as well as mythological serpents. In the later part of the Veda,
sarpa is used. The word
nāga appears in the
Brahmaṇas the
Mahābhārata
and the
Purāṇas (and the Buddhist Jātakas), and here
nāga is used only for the mythological serpents, while snakes living in nature are called
sarpas. In
Amarakośa, a Sanskrit lexicon,
nāga is not listed as a synonym for snake. Cobras, in contrast, are called
nāgas, and in religious art,
nāgas typically have cobra hoods in both their zoomorphic and anthropomorphic shapes (Semeka-Pankratov, 1979; Vogel, 1926).
The
nāgas are connected to water –
to rain as well as the dark, creative, cosmic waters of the underworld.
They are thought to hide in the interior of the earth and to appear on
the surface, particularly during rainy season. They inhabit lakes and
rivers, and the ocean is said to be their abode. The cobra was often
thought to reside under trees and in the anthills, which were thought to
be entrances to the underworld. The snake world (Nāgaloka) is described
in the
Mahābhārata as a delightful abode full of wealthy palaces, and the cobra was therefore thought of as guardian of treasures. The
nāgas
are associated with weather phenomena such as rainstorms and lightening
and are believed to control the rain. The poisonous snake represents
danger and power over life and death. The snake leaving its skin behind
symbolized longevity or immortality, and it is a simile of
mokṣa (
liberation) and of the way one who is liberated leaves evil behind (Vogel, 1926).
Hinduism contains a rich
nāga mythology. The
nāgas are important figures, especially in the first book of the
Mahābhārata, the
Ādiparvan, which contains numerous
nāga stories (in the
Pauṣya,
Puloman, and
Āstīka chapters), but narratives about sacred snakes are found throughout the
Mahābhārata (Minkowski, 1991). King Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice (
sarpasattra) in the Khāṇḍava Forest is the frame story of the
Mahābhārata (Minkowski, 1991).The story of the origin of the
nāgas is told in connection with the snake sacrifice. The
nāgas are presented as sons of Kadrū, whose sister Vinatā is the mother of Garuḍa. The
nāgas and Garuḍa are enemies, and enmity of Garuḍa and his cousins the
nāgas
is a favorite theme in Indian literature and art (Vogel, 1924). Kadrū
fraudulently won a bet against Vinatā, and those of Kadrū’s sons who had
refused to be partners in the fraud were to perish in King Janamejaya’s
sacrifice. The sacrifice was to be performed because of the violent
death of his father Parikṣit, who, while hunting, met a sage who had
taken a vow of silence, so Parikṣit insulted him by throwing a dead
snake round his shoulders when he did not answer. The son of the sage
cursed the king: on the seventh day, the lord of snakes Takṣaka was to
take the king to the god of death,
Yama.
The king took all possible precautions, but at the end of the seventh
day, the king ate a piece of fruit with a small worm inside. The worm,
it turned out, was Takṣaka, who, after he had been eaten, assumed his
real form and bit the king. The bite killed the king, and the heat of
the poison even caused the palace to burn down (Vogel, 1924). One of
Kadrū’s sons, the snake Śeṣa (“Remainder”), who is also called Ananta
(“Without End”), secluded himself from his brothers and became an
ascetic with matted hair and bark garments. When
Brahmā
asked him what was the aim of his asceticism, Śeṣa answered that he
refused to stay with his brothers who hated Garuḍa and one another.
Śeṣa chose the boon from Brahmā that his mind would rejoice in
righteousness, tranquility, and asceticism (
tapas
). Brahmā asked him to bear the earth, and since then Śeṣa
has carried the earth on his head, enveloping her in his coils (Vogel,
1924). A dominant theme of the
Mahābhārata is the
pralaya (destruction) and the end of a
yuga (era; see
cosmic cycles). Only two survive this
pralaya, and one of them is Śeṣa, whose name signifies this fact (Minkowski, 1991). Another
nāga of importance is Vāsuki, who had been anointed as king of
nāgas, according to the
Mahābhārata (
Ādiparvan), and who was the snake used as rope around Mount Meru by the
devas and
asuras for churning the ocean.
