Cobra Deities and Divine Cobras: The Ambiguous Animality of Nāgas

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religions Article Cobra Deities and Divine Cobras: The Ambiguous Animality of Nagas Gerrit Lange Department for the Study of Religions, Marburg University, 35037 Marburg, Germany; langeg@sta ff .uni-marburg.de Received: 12 June 2019; Accepted: 24 July 2019; Published: 26 July 2019 Abstract: In South Asia, cobras are the animals most dangerous to humans—as humans are to cobras Paradoxically, one threat to cobras is their worship by feeding them milk, which is harmful to them, but religiously prescribed as an act of love and tenderness towards a deity. Across cultural and religious contexts, the Nagas, mostly cobra-shaped beings, are prominent among Hindu and Buddhist deities. Are they seen as animals? Doing ethnographic fieldwork on a Himalayan female Naga Goddess, this question has long accompanied me during my participant observation and interviews, and I have found at least as many possible answers as I have had interview partners. In this article, I trace the ambiguous relationship between humans, serpents and serpent deities through the classical Sanskrit literature, Hindu and Buddhist iconographies and the retelling of myths in modern movies, short stories, and fantasy novels. In these narrations and portrayals, Nagas are often “real” snakes, i.e., members of the animal kingdom—only bigger, shape-shifting or multi-headed and, curiously, thirsty for milk. The article focuses on those traits of Nagas which set them apart from animals, and on those traits that characterize them as snakes Keywords: Hinduism; mythology; iconography; Nagas; Buddhism; dragon; human-nonhuman sociality; serpent; snake; symbolism 1. Loving and Killing Snakes Sunita, a young, pious woman in distress, bites her lower lip and directs her gaze, displaying a mixture of hope and worry, towards the termite hill. Together with a group of fellow devotees, she waits for a seemingly endless time; the tension is raised by chittering birds. Finally, a cobra raises her head out of a hole in the termite hill. Sadness gives way to enthusiasm, while some of the participants seem rather shocked. The cobra rises to her full height as yellow haldi and red sind ur powders—turmeric and vermilion—are thrown towards the snake to worship her, accompanied by increasingly rapid drum patterns. The cobra goddess is o ff ered burning oil on a leaf, an egg and a garland of white flowers Sunita sings, her song expressing some urgency to fix the snake to her spot and to prevent her from disappearing. We see the cobra from a frog’s-eye-view—notwithstanding other implications of this term vis- à -vis a snake, this cinematographic act illustrates the devotees’ submission and the majesty of a goddess in her serpent form. Sunita and the other women in the group raise a pot of milk, and we see a stream of milk gushing over the erected head of the cobra, who finally opens her mouth to drink the milk (Figure 1 ). Religions 2019 , 10 , 454; doi:10.3390 / rel 10080454 www.mdpi.com / journal / religions

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Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 2 of 26 This scene 1 from the Tamil movie Devi , “the Goddess” 2 , features a goddess who is also a cobra—a Nagi, to use the Sanskrit term. The Nagis (f) and Nagas (m) of Sanskrit mythology—i.e., the Nagins and Nags in modern Hindi or, in this case, a South Indian Nagamma—are, at the same time, both cobras and something else. In di ff erent cultural and religious contexts, the term has (and, for about three thousand years 3 , has had) di ff erent meanings. Unlike other snakes (Skt ahi , sarpa, pannaga , uraga or bhujam . ga 4 ), Nagas are “hybrid” and “supernatural” ( Cozad 2004 , p. 32). Originally, a Naga might have been merely “a snake that is exceptional due to its great size, its great powers, or perhaps both” (ibid.) Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 26 ( a ) ( b ) Figure 1. Stills from the movie Devi (Ramakrishna 1999). ( a ) A stream of milk gushes over the head of a cobra, who is worshipped as a goddess; ( b ) She opens her mouth to drink the milk. This scene 1 from the Tamil movie Devi , “the Goddess” 2 , features a goddess who is also a cobra—a Nāgī , to use the Sanskrit term. The N ā g ī s (f) and N ā gas (m) of Sanskrit mythology—i.e., the Nāgins and Nāgs in modern Hindī or, in this case, a South Indian Nāgamma—are, at the same time, both cobras and something else. In different cultural and religious contexts, the term has (and, for about three thousand years 3 , has had) different meanings. Unlike other snakes (Skt. ahi , sarpa, pannaga , uraga or bhuja ṃ ga 4 ), Nāgas are “hybrid” and “supernatural” (Cozad 2004, p. 32). Originally, a Nāga might have been merely “a snake that is exceptional due to its great size, its great powers, or perhaps both” (ibid.). Nāgas are often worshipped in front of termite hills (cf. König 1984); in the Himalayas, they are believed to dwell in springs (cf. Handa 2004; Lange 2017). These habitats highlight their relationship to fresh water, as well as to the earth; “Kadrū , ‘the Tawny One’, who, according to the Mahābhārata epic, is the mother of the thousand Nāgas, is a personification of the Earth. The snake-mother is also called Surasā , ‘she of good flavor’” (Vogel 1926, p. 20). In their “Trans-Himalayan context” (Deeg 2016), which extends throughout the Hindu and Buddhist imaginaries of Nepal, Kaśmī r, Tibet and China from the first centuries CE up until now, Nāgas 5 often have nothing to do with cobras, but are providers of water—dwelling in mountain, lakes and rivers, or in rainclouds. This connection to water does not seem to be a prominent Nāga trait in South India, where they are much more consistently and affirmatively identified with cobras (cf. Alloco 2013, 2014). In the words of an elderly sweeper of a Nāgamma’s temple in Chennai, the animal is “her ‘true form’, that of a slithering snake”, (Alloco 2013, p. 235)—other shapes in which Nāgammas appear are, among others, the stone sculptures and painted images of their worship. Like in the movie scene, a 1 (Ramakrishna 1999), minutes 37:10–38:10. 2 Devi by Kodi Ramakrishna (1999) tells the story of a young, distressed woman, who is supported and rescued by her family goddess Devī , who is a Nāgamma, a “cobra mother”. In general, the film can be categorized as a devotional film for a religious audience that—not unusually—features elements of romance, action and other movie genres. In variance of traditional conceptions of the otherworld of the Nāgas, the movie begins with Devī and her sisters arriving on earth in a kind of UFO. 3 Cf. Section 3 below. 4 Like the Latin serpens , sarpa means “creeping”; uraga , bhuja ṃ ga and pannaga respectively mean “walking on the chest”, “moving by bending”, and “creeping low”; ahi is related to other Indo-Euroean terms for snakes (cf. Mayrhofer 1992, 1996). 5 In Chinese, the term is equivalent to long 龍 , the “dragon” (Deeg 2008, p. 108); in Tibetan, to klu . Figure 1. Stills from the movie Devi ( Ramakrishna 1999 ). ( a ) A stream of milk gushes over the head of a cobra, who is worshipped as a goddess; ( b ) She opens her mouth to drink the milk Nagas are often worshipped in front of termite hills (cf König 1984 ); in the Himalayas, they are believed to dwell in springs (cf Handa 2004 ; Lange 2017 ). These habitats highlight their relationship to fresh water, as well as to the earth; “Kadr u, ‘the Tawny One’, who, according to the Mahabharata epic, is the mother of the thousand Nagas, is a personification of the Earth. The snake-mother is also called Surasa, ‘she of good flavor’” ( Vogel 1926 , p. 20) In their “Trans-Himalayan context” ( Deeg 2016 ), which extends throughout the Hindu and Buddhist imaginaries of Nepal, Kasmir, Tibet and China from the first centuries CE up until now, Nagas 5 often have nothing to do with cobras, but are providers of water—dwelling in mountain, lakes and rivers, or in rainclouds This connection to water does not seem to be a prominent Naga trait in South India, where they are much more consistently and a ffi rmatively identified with cobras (cf Alloco 2013 , 2014 ). In the words of an elderly sweeper of a Nagamma’s temple in Chennai, the animal is “her ‘true form’, that of a slithering snake”, ( Alloco 2013 , p. 235)—other shapes in which Nagammas appear are, among others, the stone sculptures and painted images of their worship. Like in the movie scene, a Nagamma can 1 ( Ramakrishna 1999 ), minutes 37:10–38:10 2 Devi by Kodi Ramakrishna ( 1999 ) tells the story of a young, distressed woman, who is supported and rescued by her family goddess Devi, who is a Nagamma, a “cobra mother”. In general, the film can be categorized as a devotional film for a religious audience that—not unusually—features elements of romance, action and other movie genres. In variance of traditional conceptions of the otherworld of the Nagas, the movie begins with Devi and her sisters arriving on earth in a kind of UFO 3 Cf. Section 3 below 4 Like the Latin serpens , sarpa means “creeping”; uraga , bhujam . ga and pannaga respectively mean “walking on the chest”, “moving by bending”, and “creeping low”; ahi is related to other Indo-Euroean terms for snakes (cf Mayrhofer 1992 , 1996 ). 5 In Chinese, the term is equivalent to long Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 26 ( a ) ( b ) Figure 4. Mucalinda, a fiveor seven-headed Nāga king, rises like an aureole behind the Buddha, who is sitting in the lotos position ( padm ā sana ): ( a ) Brass figure from Thailand, purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religion in 1957 (photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Mq 027); ( b ) Gipsum replica of a Burmese figure, probably from Bagan, 11 th—12 th c. CE (photo by Georg Dörr, acc.nr. Mq 030; for a detailed examination on their provenience, cf. (Luu 2017)) The iconography of Jainism identifies Pārśvanāth by a cobra with seven or more hoods spread behind his head in a posture similar to that of Mucalinda. An account of his deeds, the P ā r ś van ā thacarita from the 9 th c. CE, mentions right in the first verse the “female serpent (Padmāvatī ) carrying the umbrella” (Bollée 2008, p. 4). Together with her spouse, the serpent king Dharaṇa, with his “decorative, sparkling canopy of jewel-crested hoods” 27 (ibid., p. 28), she wards off a demon attacking them with rain, rocks and lightning. When Mucalinda and the other Nāgas of Buddhist mythology (cf. Section 3.2) spread to Southeast and East Asia, they lost their mostly cobra-like shape, either merging with the Chinese dragons ( long 龍 ) or other reptiles. 28 The mythological traditions of the Himalaya highlight their function as providers and controllers of water, which probably links these Nāgas to the early Vedic serpent Vṛtra (cf. Deeg 2016). A Buddhist text from the earliest centuries CE 29 says of itself that it 27 Verse 139: prasphurad-ratna-phaṇa-maṇḍapa-maṇḍita. 28 For the Rmeet of upland Laos, for instance, Nāgas are earth spirits whose “horses” are boas with crowns (Guido Sprenger, pers. comm.). Inhabitants of Komodo in eastern Indonesia sometimes identify the famous “dragons” of their island, Varanus komodoensis , as Nāgas (Annette Hornbacher, pers. comm.). 29 “The Mah ā m ā y ū r ī Vidy ā r ā jñ ī , the ‘Queen of spells (called) the Great One of the Peacock’, of which […] translations into Chinese are extant from the beginning of the 4 th century A.D. onward” (Schmithausen 1997, p. 53) is an “apotropaic text [seeming] to prefigure aspects of Tantra or Mantrāyana Buddhism” (ibid., p. 51). Rather than pacifying and converting the Nāgas by means of maitr ī (“friendship” or “compassion”), this text shows “a typically Tantric break-through of the ‘natural’ attitude of counter- (or even preventive) aggression” (ibid., p. 56). For example, malevolent demons are “threatened with having their head split […], , the “dragon” ( Deeg 2008 , p. 108); in Tibetan, to klu .

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Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 3 of 26 also shift into a “beautiful ‘ladylike’ form” (ibid.)—although she is still a snake 6 Sarah Caldwell, on the other hand, cites a Keralese informant according to whom “the snake that we worship is not the ordinary snake that we see, such as the viper, cobra, etc. The real snake is di ff erent. It is invisible We cannot see those snakes in the sarppakavu (sacred serpent grove). They are gods with great powers” ( Caldwell 1999 , p. 144) Devi shows this ambiguity of being a cobra goddess on many levels. For one, she changes her form throughout the movie, from serpent to young woman and back. Not only is it impossible to define one of these forms as her original self, her animal form, albeit conceived as such, is not defined in a biological sense. Rather, its meaning is attributed by Hindu religion or, more precisely, folk religion from Andhra Pradesh, as represented in a feature film. Apart from the opening scene, which shows the Naga goddess and her sisters entering the human realm from some kind of space ship, the movie stays close to religious beliefs and practices from across South Asia. Throughout these traditions, milk is a supreme symbol of love and devotion ( bhakti ), and therefore, it is the best gift to o ff er a goddess. Even the South Indian “cobra-mothers” ( nagamma ) seemingly love to drink milk, symbolizing maternity, purity and nourishment per se ( Lange 2019 a ), and embodying the tender relationship between worshippers and the worshipped ( Lange 2019 b ). Throughout South Asia, depicted and living serpents are given o ff erings, often milk, to placate them, to lure them to one’s side—and, of course, to prevent them from killing humans Nevertheless, the symbolic relationship between snakes and milk, prominent all over the world and throughout history (cf Ermacora 2017 ), stands in contradiction to biological and biomedical conditions: “the construction of a snake’s mouth (sharp teeth, inflexible lips) together with the absence of a diaphragm, makes it impossible for a snake to suck in the same manner as young mammals do. In addition, a snake’s digestive system does not permit the digestion of lactose: reptiles, of course, lack the lactase enzyme” (ibid., pp. 61 f.) Worshipping cobras can thus be deadly for them, as seen in statements by animal activists 7 and in the pertinent literature. In a 2012 Times of India article, the author uses Nag Pañcami , a Pan-Indian Naga festival, to create awareness about what “really” benefits snakes, instead of simply making o ff erings to them in a cruel manner: “The reptiles are abused. Their fangs are removed, and they are starved so that they consume milk o ff ered to them by the devotees. This kind of torture proves fatal for the snakes.” 8 That said, the title of that article suggests not to abandon religious traditions in favor of scientifically embedded practices, but rather to reform the religious festival and to give it a new meaning: “This Nag Panchami, protect the snake!” Devi evokes an atmosphere of passionate engagement between humans and a Hindu deity in the form of an animal; the o ff ering of milk to the cobra signifies tenderness and love between members of di ff erent species. Scientific and environmentalist discourses, however, see in the tenderness of “devotion” a form of “cruelty”: The benefit to the animal is not the same as the benefit to the deity Does this mean that the deity and the animal are not the same being? There might be as many answers to this question as there are people who call themselves Hindus; still, a look into the complex mythological, iconographic and ritual histories of the Nagas provides interesting insights into who or what is considered to be a god(dess), animal or human being 6 In South India, the worship of Nagas has the main purposes of overcoming childlessness—which is interpreted as the curse or revenge of a snake for being killed, hurt or disturbed by a human—and to prevent snakebites (cf Alloco 2013 ). Appeasing the deity also means developing good terms with the animals; thus, their main festival ( Naga Caturtti in South India and, in North India and only on one day, Nag Pañcami ) takes place in “the rainy season, a period in which snake bites are more likely due to the fact that snakes are often displaced from their subterranean homes during the monsoon, and when many Tamil farmers are sowing paddy seeds and may encounter snakes in agricultural fields.” (ibid., p. 242) 7 https: // savethesnakesorg / 2017 / 07 / 29 / nag-panchami-good-for-snakes / , last accessed 26 March 2019 8 https: // timesofindia.indiatimescom / home / environment / flora-fauna / This-Nag-Panchami-protect-the-snake / articleshow / 15098629.cms , last accessed 26 March 2019.

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Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 4 of 26 These questions are in the center of my ethnographic fieldwork on the worship of the Nainis or Naginis, who are nine Nag goddesses in the Indian Central Himalaya who will be the focus of Section 2 . Although people do not worship them in the shape of an animal, they are often alluded to as cobras. Do they merely share their name with the shape-shifting goddess of the South Indian movie, and with the cobras whom the Times of India aim to protect against being worshipped? To find out how much common mythological background these di ff erent, currently worshipped Nagis share, Section 3 develops a historically rooted view on their religious traditions by outlining some exemplary roles Nagas play in the Mahabharata epic, in Buddhism and in modern Indian literature. Since the 19 th Century, an additional discourse has emerged in academic and political retellings and reinterpretations of Hindu mythology, raising the question of whether Nagas and other nonhuman beings are, instead of being either deities or animals, an allegory for human ethnic groups. This modern discourse will be the focus of Section 4 , after which I finally apply the reformulated question about the animalness of Nagas to the Himalayan goddess 2. Naini Mata, a Nag-Goddess of the Central Himalaya Do the Nag deities of today’s popular Hinduism have anything to do with cobras or other snake species? I have been doing fieldwork on Naga-related goddesses in the Indian Central Himalaya since 2011 Naini ( = Hindi nagin ) is the name of nine sisters, each believed to rule as goddess ( devi ) and mother ( mata ) over a part of the Pindar river valley. In the rituals, festivals and processions devoted to them, they have a huge range of ritual embodiments: a pole clothed with saris, male dancers in evening performances, women in states of possession. To an unassuming observer, in none of these embodiments do the Nainis look or behave di ff erently from other local Hindu gods. They do not show o ff their serpentine features and, unlike other Indian Nags, are never depicted in sculptures or posters However, at second glance, the songs sung during the rituals and the stories told to me in interviews reveal that both their snake-like nature and their connection to the Nagas in classical Hindu mythology indeed play a huge role. My interview partners often signaled that they were talking about a Naini by a hand gesture mimicking a cobra with its hood spread. Interestingly, the same gesture also appears in the opening few seconds of the film sequence used to introduce this article 9 While most of my fieldwork takes place in Himalayan regions above altitudes of 1500 m, where no “real” cobras are encountered, the imaginary Nags are nonetheless very real to the people, who regard and love them as nonhuman family members. The Naini of the village Rains, for instance, had to be worshipped for half a year from 2016 to 2017. Her devotees ( bhakt ) attend to her as the village’s mother and relative, but also as an unleashed ´sakti , an ambivalent “force” which has to be tamed by a priest. As I was told by the teacher B. S Rawat in Chopta village, this priest, called ganve, “is controlling Nagina Devi, makes some sounds, and Goddess Nagini dances. That means, he is the master of that Nagini. In the simple language we can say: He is sapera [a snake charmer]!” 10 These festivals are held for most of the nine Naini sisters in intervals of 40–50 years. Each goddess spends the long time between the festivals devoted to her in a clay pot filled with milk and buried beneath a tree 11 When some a ffl iction [ dos ] is felt to befall the village—cows give less milk, or their milk is mixed with blood—this is seen as a sign that she starts missing her people and that these must prepare a festival in her honor. Ritual specialists dig up the pot, which means that she “comes out of 9 https: // www.youtube.com / watch?v = IhoabvEFIRg , last accessed 26 March 2019, minute 35:48:10. Using this gesture, a secondary character proclaims that there will not remain “one single drop of milk” in town, for it will all be used for the Naga festival 10 Interview from 18 October 2016 11 “In that pot we put water and milk. In our religion we believe that a snake drinks milk. So we put that gara [pot] there for that Nagini Devi, [this] is the symbol of Patalloka [the netherworld]. And we believe that snakes live in Patalloka . Generally, we know snake lives in [underground], generally, they come out in the summer season but in other seasons they go down under the ground for long sleep. Same way, the Nagini Devi is also a snake. We put her in that gadda for a long period [ . . ] The soul of Nagini lives in that gadda , which is covered in the root of that T un tree” (ibid.).

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Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 5 of 26 the underworld” ( patal lok se nikalti ). After several weeks, a bamboo pole is prepared and animated with her being 12 In this form, she then spends six months among her human devotees, who convoy and carry her around the whole region. She visits all the villages into which the dhiyani s, women from the village, have married, even when this took place generations ago. In all these villages, large groups of women gather and sing songs to her. One of them, Rendyo-Kendyo (“crawl and be carried on [our] shoulders”) is sung repeatedly every day. Parvati Devi Mehra, an elderly woman of Bha ˙ngota village, explained to me that Naini is not only seen as Nagini , a mythological cobra goddess, but also as a living snake ( sam . p ): “To begin with, Nagini Mata is like a snake. How does she move? That is her song, like this. How she walks, that is what the song is [about]: Rendyo-Kendyo .” 13 Six months of this procession, and many more rituals, finally culminate in the making of a grass rope several kilometers long. This rope, as B. S. Rawat told me, is not only the symbol of a snake, but the snake itself, whose head “runs” (i.e., is carried by crowds of people) uphill and the tail downhill Afterwards, she again vanishes into the pot—or rather, into the netherworld. When asked about the whereabouts of this realm, B. S. Rawat gave an answer I did not expect: “In the past, people [thought that] Europe, Asia and Middle East, only this is the earth! [Now we know that on] this side [are] Asia, Europe, and [on the] opposed side Amerika. That is called patal lok .” [Question: “Therefore, if I go to America, I will be in patal lok ?”] “Yes. [ . . ] Anacondas, much variety of snakes live in America, you know? [In Hindi:] Of all places of the world, most snakes dwell in America. This is why, in our village, we believe it to be the nag lok , the realm of the Nagas.” 14 The movie Devi also calls the netherworld inhabited by Nagas patal 15 Whereas, in South Indian imagination, patal is connected to this world by termite hills, Himalayan beliefs and practices take springs and mountain lakes as the dwelling place of Nags and as entrances into their own world (cf Lange 2017 ). In opposition to the South Indian Nagis, whose “real” shape is that of a cobra, the Nainis are said to take on human form in their own world, while they appear in this world as (sometimes invisible) cobras, but also as ropes, poles and possessed people At first glance, Naini and Nagamma do not seem to have more in common with each other than with other Hindu deities, apart from their name. However, a closer look reveals features that more firmly embed them within Pan-Hindu concepts of Nagas: • Both names, Naini Mata and Nagamma, mean “cobra mother” • When feeling neglected, mistreated or hurt by their human “children”, both “mothers” are able to curse them—if involuntarily—with an a ffl iction or disease ( dos ) related to their poisonous nature • Both mothers are fed with milk; Naini Mata’s dos is also said to spoil the milk as a sign of her bad mood • Both are said to live in patal lok , a netherworld Furthermore, when I asked for the Naini sisters’ parents, I usually heard names that I knew from Sanskrit sources; their mother is said to be Padma Nagini and their father either Vasuki Nag 12 “ Brahmobandan , that means, [...] a bamboo stick covered with clothes, sari s, and on [2:00] top of that bamboo, covered with some [ . . ] colored cloth; that is the head of the snake. That is our belief! And that nisan is the symbol of Naini Devi. Naini means Nag!” (ibid.) 13 ¯ Arambh sur u, sam . p jaise Nagini Mata hai. Nagini Mata kaise jati hai – yeh hai uska gana, yeh hai [ . . ]. Jaise calti hai, vaise gana hai iska: Rendyo-Kendyo (interview recorded on 18.10.2018) 14 Interview from 18.10.2016. The last sentences are translated from Hindi: Duniya ke sabse jagah snake America mem . milte haim . , uslie ham usko Naglok bhi kahte haim . . Hamare gaum . v me usko Naglok mana jata hai! 15 Devi , minute 35:48:00.

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Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 6 of 26 or Kaliya / Kala ˙ngiri Nag. To better understand this background, the anthropological approach can be complemented by philological and archaeological findings, providing more contexts for “Indian serpent lore” ( Vogel 1926 ). 3. Nagas as Animals, Deities, and Demons In modern Hindi, nag means “cobra”. As such, Nagas are classified among the reptiles, the re ˙ngnevale jiv jantu (Figure 2 )—they are “living animals” ( jiv jantu ) which crawl, creep, slither and snake ( re ˙ngna ). In ordinary human-animal encounters, cobras and other poisonous snakes usually do not behave as protectors, as Devi does in the movie, but rather as something to be protected against, being the most dangerous animals in India 16 Dated around 900 BCE, Atharvaveda 6.56 ( Embree 1988 , pp. 23 f.) already provides a spell against their deadly bite, simultaneously praising and threatening the serpents ( ahi ). Here, snakes are imagined both as slayers of humans and as praiseworthy “divine folk”—similar to the snake goddess Mansa of current Bengal, who kills with one eye and revives with the other ( Smith 1985 , p. 46; 2015 ). Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 26 complemented by philological and archaeological findings, providing more contexts for “Indian serpent lore” (Vogel 1926). 3. N ā gas as Animals, Deities, and Demons In modern Hindī , n ā g means “cobra”. As such, Nāgas are classified among the reptiles, the re ṅ gnev ā le j ī v jantu (Figure 2)—they are “living animals” ( j ī v jantu ) which crawl, creep, slither and snake ( re ṅ gn ā ). In ordinary human-animal encounters, cobras and other poisonous snakes usually do not behave as protectors, as Devī does in the movie, but rather as something to be protected against, being the most dangerous animals in India 16 Dated around 900 BCE, Atharvaveda 6.56 (Embree 1988, pp. 23 f.) already provides a spell against their deadly bite, simultaneously praising and threatening the serpents ( ahi ). Here, snakes are imagined both as slayers of humans and as praiseworthy “divine folk”—similar to the snake goddess Mansā of current Bengal, who kills with one eye and revives with the other (Smith 1985, p. 46; Haq 2015). Figure 2. Educational poster, bought by the author in Delhi, autumn 2016. Published by Geeta Enterprises, Delhi. The word n ā ga in the senses of “serpent” or “serpent demon” first appears in the Ś atapatha- Br ā hma ṇ a (Mayrhofer 1996, p. 33), which can be dated back to the first half of the first millennium BCE 17 The Mah ā bh ā rata epic is the first text dwelling extensively on Nāgas as such and on the stories of individual Nāgas, such as the cosmic snake Śeṣa, the Nāga kings Vāsuki, Takṣaka, Airāvata and 16 https://www.downtoearthorg.in/news/wildlife-biodiversity/serpentine-problem-58396, last access 26 March 2019. 17 For me, the evidence that the Ś atapatha-Br ā hma ṇ a uses n ā ga in this sense seems not very strong. Laurie Cozad (2004, p. 32) specifies the passage as Ś B 5.4.1.2. I did not find any Nāgas mentioned in this passage, at least in the version available on gretilorg, but “biting and stinging ones (serpents) who are neither worms (insects) nor non-worms” ( naite krimayo n ā krimayo yaddanda śū k ā ). Another passage, ŚB 11.2.7.2., mentions people who “come in droves as if desiring to see a great Nāga” ((Cozad 2004, p. 203); gretilorg has the Sanskrit text thus translated as mah ā n ā gam iv ā bhisa ṃ s ā ra ṃ did ṛ k ṣ it ā ro ). The commentary of the Mādhyabdhinas specifies that this is in reference to a great snake ( mah ā sarpa ) and not an elephant or a mountain (ibid., p. 169, fn. 18). Figure 2. Educational poster, bought by the author in Delhi, autumn 2016. Published by Geeta Enterprises, Delhi The word naga in the senses of “serpent” or “serpent demon” first appears in the ´Satapatha-Brahmana ( Mayrhofer 1996 , p. 33), which can be dated back to the first half of the first millennium BCE 17 The Mahabharata epic is the first text dwelling extensively on Nagas as such and on the stories of individual Nagas, such as the cosmic snake ´Sesa, the Naga kings Vasuki, Taksaka, Air¯avata and Karkotaka or the princesses Ul upi 18 “The firstborn was ´Sesa, and Vasuki came after him” ( Mahabharata 16 https: // www.downtoearthorg.in / news / wildlife-biodiversity / serpentine-problem-58396 , last access 26 March 2019 17 For me, the evidence that the ´Satapatha-Brahmana uses naga in this sense seems not very strong Cozad ( 2004 , p. 32) specifies the passage as ´SB 5.4.1.2. I did not find any Nagas mentioned in this passage, at least in the version available on gretilorg , but “biting and stinging ones (serpents) who are neither worms (insects) nor non-worms” ( naite krimayo nakrimayo yaddandas uka ). Another passage, ´SB 11.2.7.2., mentions people who “come in droves as if desiring to see a great Naga” (( Cozad 2004 , p. 203); gretilorg has the Sanskrit text thus translated as mahanagam ivabhisam . saram . didrksitaro ) The commentary of the Madhyabdhinas specifies that this is in reference to a great snake ( mahasarpa ) and not an elephant or a mountain (ibid., p. 169, fn. 18) 18 Mahabharata 1.31 gives a long list of prominent Nagas, continuing with the story of ´Sesa in 1.32. The story of Ul upi’s a ff air with Arjuna is narrated in 1.206, and Karkotaka plays major roles in the famous story of Nala and Damayanti (3.63) and in the foundation myths of Nepal (cf Deeg 2016 , pp. 171, 195).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Karu, Law, Art, Ways, Royal, Print, Press, Glow, Rudolf, Waters, Varma, Bombay, Princes, Ananta, Narayana, Visnu, Silver, Date, Ravi, Aloe, Rank, Round, Pearly, Body, Ayan, Bed, Return, Power, Cheeks, Eyes, Wooden, Saffron, Yad, Ocean, Srinivasan, Foot, Blocker, Lords, Nails, Nar, Arms, Blessings, Shiva, Kila, Varman, Laksmi, Reason, Sanchi, Walls, Pati, Aiko, Ala, Ses, Semi, Siva, Image, Otto, Bright, Shining, Aru, Vishnu]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 7 of 26 1.31, transl van Buitenen 1973 , p. 91). ´Sesa and Vasuki are the names of the Nagas most often worshipped, even today, depicted on many posters and walls as the bed of the god Visnu (´Sesa, cf Figure 3 b), as the garland of the god ´Siva and as the rope used for churning an ocean of milk (Vasuki in the ubiquitous motive of samudramanthana ). For this reason, I will dwell on the Mahabharata in a separate subsection, neglecting the earliest Vedic accounts on the serpent ( ahi ) Vrtra, who is not called a Naga—although Vrtra’s role as a blocker of the waters ( apah ), especially of the “seven rivers” ( saptasindh u 19 ), has probably made an impact on later conceptions of Nagas (cf Deeg 2016 , pp. 222 f.) Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 9 of 26 “Thou art Śeṣa, greatest of Snakes, thou art the God of Law, for thou alone lendest support to this earth, encircling her entire with endless coils.” 25 A later text, the Bh ā gavatapur ā ṇ a , probably completed in the 9 th–10 th century, dwells on this image of Śeṣa carrying the earth, but again humanizes his body—as well as the bodies and emotions of other Nāga princesses and princes—in multiple ways: 4. The Snake-Lords ( ahi-pati ) look at their own enchantingly beautiful faces, their cheeks’ surfaces adorned by the glow of their shining earrings ( ku ṇḍ ala ), [reflected] in the round and pearly nails of [ Śeṣa’s] two foot-lotuses, which are of a bright red. 5. The Nāga-princesses look shyly ( sa-vr ī ḍ a ) at the “ aravinda -lotusflower” of his face, whose eyes, watching [them in return], are reddened by compassion ( aru ṇ a-karu ṇ a ) […]—hoping for blessings, [they] smear ointments of aloe, sandalwood, saffron on the “silver pillars” ( rajata-stambha ) of his spotless, long, white, delicate and beautiful arms, which are illuminated by the splendid bracelets on his limbs 26 Rather than “arms”, bhuja might also mean the coils of a snake—but, when compared to pillars and belonging to someone with foot nails and a face capable of expressing human-like emotions, the more common meaning of the word is more likely. ( a ) ( b ) Figure 3. The Hindu god Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa is enthroned or bedded on the Nāga Ananta- Śeṣa, whose multiple hoods serve as a royal parasol: ( a ) Print by the Ravi-Varma-Press, Bombay (given by Rudolf Otto to the Marburg Museum of Religion, photo by Özlem Ögütcü, acc.nr. B-Kp 083); ( b ) Wooden sculpture of Viṣṇu, Lakṣmī and Śeṣ (given 1936 to the Marburg Museum of Religion, photo by Aiko Wösner, acc.nr. Lp 214). 25 Mah ā bh ā rata 1.32.23, śeṣo ‘si nāgottama dharmadevo; mahīm imāṃ dhārayase yad ekaḥ / anantabhogaḥ parigṛhya sarvāṃ (accessed on gretilorg; transl. van Buitenen 1973, S93). 26 My transl. from Bh ā gavatapur ā ṇ a 5.25.4–5: yasyā ṅ ghrikamalayugalāruṇaviśadanakhamaṇiṣaṇḍamaṇḍaleṣv ahipatayaḥ […] svavadanāni parisphuratkuṇḍalaprabhāmaṇḍitagaṇḍasthalāny atimanoharāṇ i pramuditamanasaḥ khalu vilokayanti // 4 // yasyaiva hi nāgarājakumārya āśiṣa āśāsānāś cārvaṅgavalayavilasitaviśadavipuladhavalasubhagarucirabhujarajatastambheṣv agurucandanakuṅkumapaṅkānulepenāvalimpamānā s […] aruṇakaruṇāvalokanayanavadanāravinda ṃ savrīḍ a ṃ kila vilokayanti // 5 // (accessed on gretilorg). Figure 3. The Hindu god Visnu-Nar¯ayan.a is enthroned or bedded on the Naga Ananta-´Sesa, whose multiple hoods serve as a royal parasol: ( a ) Print by the Ravi-Varma-Press, Bombay (given by Rudolf Otto to the Marburg Museum of Religion, photo by Özlem Ögütcü, acc.nr. B-Kp 083); ( b ) Wooden sculpture of Visnu, Laksmi and ´Ses. (given 1936 to the Marburg Museum of Religion, photo by Aiko Wösner, acc.nr. Lp 214) Archeological findings from the earliest centuries CE do not show the Nagas in a completely human or animal shape, but always in between. In his 1926 monograph on “The Nagas in Hindu Legend and Art”, which is the most comprehensive study of Hindu and Buddhist Nagas to date, V ogel points out that “the Naga of Indian mythology and folk-lore is not really the snake in general, but the cobra raised to the rank of a divine being [ . . ]. The evidence of Indian art points to the same conclusion. The Naga, represented either in a purely animal or in a semi-human shape, is always characterized by the snake-hood” ( Vogel 1926 , p. 27) In South Asia, Nagas started to populate the religious imagery as cobras with several hoods or as humans behind whose heads several cobra hoods are raised as a parasol ( chatra ), indicating royalty ( Srinivasan 2007 ). The early Buddhist and Hindu art of the first centuries BCE and CE, found in Sanchi, Gandhara and Ajanta, displays an “intermingling between the theriomorphic and anthropomorphic nature and power of Nagas” ( Srinivasan 2007 , p. 376): “Generally human and animal properties are strangely blended [ . . ]. We can in the main distinguish three iconographic types: first, the form of the serpent, usually many-headed; second, the human form universally characterized by means of the polycephalous serpent-hood; third, a combination of the two, the upper part of a human body being 19 Among other passages, R . gveda 1.32.12, 2.12.3 & 2.12.12.

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Yogi, Just, Tank, Mathura, Sri, Four, Rms, Nga, Garden, Sveta, Servant, Sky, Basin, Mere, Zone, Gaja, Loka, Max, Baba, Wild, Pilgrim, Banks, Dik, Kush, Matter, Odd, Mani, Guard, Ever, Vat, Chin, Ira, Myanmar, Pala, Shorter, Tasya, English, Area, Indra, Holy, Riding, Assam, Wind, Forget, Suta, Lake, German, Nka, Cloudy, Cloud]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 8 of 26 combined with the lower half of a snake’s coils. Of these three forms, the one last mentioned is comparatively rare; it does occur in Brahmanical sculpture, but in Buddhist art it is hardly ever employed [ . . ]. Just as the gods are distinguished from mere mortals by the plurality of their arms, thus the divine serpents are many-headed” ( Vogel 1926 , pp. 37 f.) For instance, in a relief from Mathura, dating back to the 3 rd Century CE, a “large Naga is flanked by two shorter Naginis. They are all depicted as humans but with the addition of snake hoods; the male has a seven-headed hood, the female hoods contain three. At the bottom of the relief is an inscription that reads ‘ . . a tank and a garden (were caused to be made) for the holy Naga Bhumo’ [ . . ]. The place of worship is outdoors, near a body of water” ( Srinivasan 2007 , p. 374) An inscription from Gandhara in the upper Indus Basin further a ffi rms the connection of the Nagas to fresh water, “stating that a tank was made for the worship of all snakes” (ibid., p. 375, fn. 62). Furthermore, “the Sonkh Naga temple supports such a linkage for it seems to have originally stood by the banks of a river. [ . . ]. In the area of Sañci [ . . ], of the sixteen groups of Naga sculptures dating between the 2 nd Century B.C. and the 10 th century A.D. whose provenance is known, seven are associated with irrigation reservoirs, five with village tanks and four with rivers or streams” (ibid.) As divine, demonic or spiritual guardians of the water, the Nagas of this early epoch are di ff erent from animals, as well as from humans. Polysemy further complicates the matter, as the Sanskrit word naga can also mean “cloud”, “mountain” or “elephant” 20 The odd homonymy of serpents and elephants can be explained by an Indo-European etymology as a “hairless, naked animal”, rather than as a cognate of English snake (cf Mayrhofer 1996 , p. 33). Possibly, the “elephants of the four directions” ( di ˙n-naga, dig-gaja ) in Hindu as well as in Buddhist worldviews have their origin, via reinterpretation, in cobra kings as the four or eight “guardians of the world” ( loka-pala , dik-pala; cf Vogel 1926 , pp. 9, 210 f.; cf Srinivasan 2007 , p. 382). Airavata, for instance, occurs in the Mahabharata both as the name of the elephant of Indra, king of the gods and agent of the weather, 21 and as the name of a serpent king According to Max Deeg ( 2008 , p. 97), in 4 th–5 th Century North India, at the latest, a distinction was made between Nagas as supernatural beings and their manifestations in the shape of serpents (Skt sarpa , bhujam . ga or ahi ) 22 Nevertheless, a Naga (Chin long Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 26 ( a ) ( b ) Figure 4. Mucalinda, a fiveor seven-headed Nāga king, rises like an aureole behind the Buddha, who is sitting in the lotos position ( padm ā sana ): ( a ) Brass figure from Thailand, purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religion in 1957 (photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Mq 027); ( b ) Gipsum replica of a Burmese figure, probably from Bagan, 11 th—12 th c. CE (photo by Georg Dörr, acc.nr. Mq 030; for a detailed examination on their provenience, cf. (Luu 2017)) The iconography of Jainism identifies Pārśvanāth by a cobra with seven or more hoods spread behind his head in a posture similar to that of Mucalinda. An account of his deeds, the P ā r ś van ā thacarita from the 9 th c. CE, mentions right in the first verse the “female serpent (Padmāvatī ) carrying the umbrella” (Bollée 2008, p. 4). Together with her spouse, the serpent king Dharaṇa, with his “decorative, sparkling canopy of jewel-crested hoods” 27 (ibid., p. 28), she wards off a demon attacking them with rain, rocks and lightning. When Mucalinda and the other Nāgas of Buddhist mythology (cf. Section 3.2) spread to Southeast and East Asia, they lost their mostly cobra-like shape, either merging with the Chinese dragons ( long 龍 ) or other reptiles 28 The mythological traditions of the Himalaya highlight their function as providers and controllers of water, which probably links these Nāgas to the early Vedic serpent Vṛtra (cf. Deeg 2016). A Buddhist text from the earliest centuries CE 29 says of itself that it 27 Verse 139: prasphurad-ratna-phaṇa-maṇḍapa-maṇḍita. 28 For the Rmeet of upland Laos, for instance, Nāgas are earth spirits whose “horses” are boas with crowns (Guido Sprenger, pers. comm.). Inhabitants of Komodo in eastern Indonesia sometimes identify the famous “dragons” of their island, Varanus komodoensis , as Nāgas (Annette Hornbacher, pers. comm.). 29 “The Mah ā m ā y ū r ī Vidy ā r ā jñ ī , the ‘Queen of spells (called) the Great One of the Peacock’, of which […] translations into Chinese are extant from the beginning of the 4 th century A.D. onward” (Schmithausen 1997, p. 53) is an “apotropaic text [seeming] to prefigure aspects of Tantra or Mantrāyana Buddhism” (ibid., p. 51). Rather than pacifying and converting the Nāgas by means of maitr ī (“friendship” or “compassion”), this text shows “a typically Tantric break-through of the ‘natural’ attitude of counter- (or even preventive) aggression” (ibid., p. 56). For example, malevolent demons are “threatened with having their head split […], ), who lives in a lake in the Hindu Kush, allegedly describes his own species as “wild animals” of a low and evil kind, but of huge power, riding on clouds, drinking the wind, walking across the sky and water, often overcome by hate and violence they forget to control 23 Embodying forces of nature tamed by their own religious devotion, the Nagas ´Sesa and Mucalinda appear as prominent servants of the Hindu god Visnu and of the Buddha, respectively. Similarly, 20 In modern Hindi, naga —a word derived from Sanskrit na ˙nga / nagna , “naked”—denotes both the tribal inhabitants of Assam and Nagaland and the Naga Baba s, members of the sometimes-militant orders of “naked Yogis” 21 Vettam Mani’s Puranic Encyclopedia (p. 19) cites the “belief that Airavata is one of the eight elephants guarding the eight zones of the universe. These eight elephants are called the Astadiggajas. Airavata is supposed to guard the eastern zone” In the gretil version of the Mahabharata , however, I was unable to find this specific information, only that “Airavata, the divine elephant, the huge elephant, was the son of [Bhadramana]” ( Mahabharata 1.60.61, airavatah. sutas tasya devanago mahagajah.) and that her sister “´Sveta gave birth to the quickly moving dig-gaja called ´Sveta” (ibid., 1.60.64, disagajam . tu svetakhyam svetajanayad asugam). Airavata could mean “son of Iravati”, which had been a former name of the Ravi River in Panjab and still is the name of the Irawaddy, the central river of Myanmar. On the other hand, Airavata could also mean “belonging to the ocean” or “cloudy”, for ira-vat, “providing refreshment / food”, is a term used for clouds as well as for the ocean and the rivers mentioned. Translating airavata as “cloudy” makes sense, for the elephant of the weather god is also called abhramata ˙nga, the “cloud elephant” 22 Deeg draws this conclusion from his translation of the accounts of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Faxian, who visited Kasmir, the Gangetic plains and ´Sri La ˙nka between 399 and 413 CE. He reports on the naga (chin long Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 26 ( a ) ( b ) Figure 4. Mucalinda, a fiveor seven-headed Nāga king, rises like an aureole behind the Buddha, who is sitting in the lotos position ( padm ā sana ): ( a ) Brass figure from Thailand, purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religion in 1957 (photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Mq 027); ( b ) Gipsum replica of a Burmese figure, probably from Bagan, 11 th—12 th c. CE (photo by Georg Dörr, acc.nr. Mq 030; for a detailed examination on their provenience, cf. (Luu 2017)) The iconography of Jainism identifies Pārśvanāth by a cobra with seven or more hoods spread behind his head in a posture similar to that of Mucalinda. An account of his deeds, the P ā r ś van ā thacarita from the 9 th c. CE, mentions right in the first verse the “female serpent (Padmāvatī ) carrying the umbrella” (Bollée 2008, p. 4). Together with her spouse, the serpent king Dharaṇa, with his “decorative, sparkling canopy of jewel-crested hoods” 27 (ibid., p. 28), she wards off a demon attacking them with rain, rocks and lightning. When Mucalinda and the other Nāgas of Buddhist mythology (cf. Section 3.2) spread to Southeast and East Asia, they lost their mostly cobra-like shape, either merging with the Chinese dragons ( long 龍 ) or other reptiles 28 The mythological traditions of the Himalaya highlight their function as providers and controllers of water, which probably links these Nāgas to the early Vedic serpent Vṛtra (cf. Deeg 2016). A Buddhist text from the earliest centuries CE 29 says of itself that it 27 Verse 139: prasphurad-ratna-phaṇa-maṇḍapa-maṇḍita. 28 For the Rmeet of upland Laos, for instance, Nāgas are earth spirits whose “horses” are boas with crowns (Guido Sprenger, pers. comm.). Inhabitants of Komodo in eastern Indonesia sometimes identify the famous “dragons” of their island, Varanus komodoensis , as Nāgas (Annette Hornbacher, pers. comm.). 29 “The Mah ā m ā y ū r ī Vidy ā r ā jñ ī , the ‘Queen of spells (called) the Great One of the Peacock’, of which […] translations into Chinese are extant from the beginning of the 4 th century A.D. onward” (Schmithausen 1997, p. 53) is an “apotropaic text [seeming] to prefigure aspects of Tantra or Mantrāyana Buddhism” (ibid., p. 51). Rather than pacifying and converting the Nāgas by means of maitr ī (“friendship” or “compassion”), this text shows “a typically Tantric break-through of the ‘natural’ attitude of counter- (or even preventive) aggression” (ibid., p. 56). For example, malevolent demons are “threatened with having their head split […], ) of the city Sa ˙nkasya who, once a year, takes on the form of a serpent with white ears. Thus, the long clearly is no usual serpent and di ff erent also from Chinese dragons ( long ), which are denoted by the same characteristics 23 ( Deeg 2008 , p. 100) provides a German translation of this narration by another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Xuanzang from the 7 th Century.

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Husband, Mahim, Life, Seso, Asana, Brahma, Fruit, Jain, Sun, Pari, Hair, Bark, Cira, Xix, Dharan, Tirtha, Imam]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 9 of 26 the Jain religion has the Nagi Padmavati and her husband Dharan.a as servants of Parsvanath, one of the most venerated tirtha ˙nkaras, “creators of passages”. Their iconography depicts all four of them as living umbrellas, using the hoods of their multiple cobra heads to provide shelter from the sun or the rain (Figures 3 and 4 ; cf Vogel 1926 , plates XVII, XIX, pp. 57, 102 f.) Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 26 ( a ) ( b ) Figure 4. Mucalinda, a fiveor seven-headed Nāga king, rises like an aureole behind the Buddha, who is sitting in the lotos position ( padm ā sana ): ( a ) Brass figure from Thailand, purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religion in 1957 (photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Mq 027); ( b ) Gipsum replica of a Burmese figure, probably from Bagan, 11 th—12 th c. CE (photo by Georg Dörr, acc.nr. Mq 030; for a detailed examination on their provenience, cf. (Luu 2017)). The iconography of Jainism identifies Pārśvanāth by a cobra with seven or more hoods spread behind his head in a posture similar to that of Mucalinda. An account of his deeds, the P ā r ś van ā thacarita from the 9 th c. CE, mentions right in the first verse the “female serpent (Padmāvatī ) carrying the umbrella” (Bollée 2008, p. 4). Together with her spouse, the serpent king Dharaṇa, with his “decorative, sparkling canopy of jewel-crested hoods” 27 (ibid., p. 28), she wards off a demon attacking them with rain, rocks and lightning. When Mucalinda and the other Nāgas of Buddhist mythology (cf. Section 3.2) spread to Southeast and East Asia, they lost their mostly cobra-like shape, either merging with the Chinese dragons ( long 龍 ) or other reptiles 28 The mythological traditions of the Himalaya highlight their function as providers and controllers of water, which probably links these Nāgas to the early Vedic serpent Vṛtra (cf. Deeg 2016). A Buddhist text from the earliest centuries CE 29 says of itself that it 27 Verse 139: prasphurad-ratna-phaṇa-maṇḍapa-maṇḍita. 28 For the Rmeet of upland Laos, for instance, N ā gas are earth spirits whose “horses” are boas with crowns (Guido Sprenger, pers. comm.). Inhabitants of Komodo in eastern Indonesia sometimes identify the famous “dragons” of their island, Varanus komodoensis , as Nāgas (Annette Hornbacher, pers. comm.). 29 “The Mah ā m ā y ū r ī Vidy ā r ā jñ ī , the ‘Queen of spells (called) the Great One of the Peacock’, of which […] translations into Chinese are extant from the beginning of the 4 th century A.D. onward” (Schmithausen 1997, p. 53) is an “apotropaic text [seeming] to prefigure aspects of Tantra or Mantrāyana Buddhism” (ibid., p. 51). Rather than pacifying and converting the Nāgas by means of maitr ī (“friendship” or “compassion”), this text shows “a typically Tantric break-through of the ‘natural’ attitude of counter- (or even preventive) aggression” (ibid., p. 56). For example, malevolent demons are “threatened with having their head split […], Figure 4. Mucalinda, a fiveor seven-headed Naga king, rises like an aureole behind the Buddha, who is sitting in the lotos position ( padm¯asana ): ( a ) Brass figure from Thailand, purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religion in 1957 (photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Mq 027); ( b ) Gipsum replica of a Burmese figure, probably from Bagan, 11 th—12 th c. CE (photo by Georg Dörr, acc.nr. Mq 030; for a detailed examination on their provenience, cf. ( Luu 2017 ). In the Mahabharata ( 1999 ), this motif is not yet developed; here, ´Sesa is a Naga leaving his siblings behind to live the life of an ascetic, “wearing the hermit’s hair tuft [ jata ] and bark shirt [ cira ], his skin, flesh and muscles dried out” 24 —features clearly indicating that he is not restricted to a serpentine body However, when Brahma gives him, as the fruit of his penance, the task to carry and stabilize the whole earth, his address makes clear that ´Sesa still has some bodily features of a serpent, at least potentially: “Thou art ´Sesa, greatest of Snakes, thou art the God of Law, for thou alone lendest support to this earth, encircling her entire with endless coils.” 25 A later text, the Bhagavatapurana , probably completed in the 9 th–10 th century, dwells on this image of ´Sesa carrying the earth, but again humanizes his body—as well as the bodies and emotions of other Naga princesses and princes—in multiple ways: 24 Mahabharata 1.32.5, parisuskamamsatvaksnayum. jataciradharam. (accessed on gretilorg , transl van Buitenen 1973 , S. 92) 25 Mahabharata 1.32.23, seso ‘si nagottama dharmadevo; mahim imam. dharayase yad ekah / anantabhogah. parigrhya sarvam (accessed on gretilorg ; transl van Buitenen 1973 , S93).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Ayana, Shanti, Raj, Oder, Uri, Aber, Boll, Arya, Kashmir, Tra, Ron, Karuna, Santi, Dass, Wish, Mantri, Wieder, Aruna, End, Dal]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 10 of 26 4. The Snake-Lords ( ahi-pati ) look at their own enchantingly beautiful faces, their cheeks’ surfaces adorned by the glow of their shining earrings ( kundala ), [reflected] in the round and pearly nails of [´Sesa’s] two foot-lotuses, which are of a bright red 5. The Naga-princesses look shyly ( sa-vrida ) at the “ aravinda -lotusflower” of his face, whose eyes, watching [them in return], are reddened by compassion ( aruna-karuna ) [ . . ]—hoping for blessings, [they] smear ointments of aloe, sandalwood, sa ff ron on the “silver pillars” ( rajata-stambha ) of his spotless, long, white, delicate and beautiful arms, which are illuminated by the splendid bracelets on his limbs 26 Rather than “arms”, bhuja might also mean the coils of a snake—but, when compared to pillars and belonging to someone with foot nails and a face capable of expressing human-like emotions, the more common meaning of the word is more likely The iconography of Jainism identifies Parsvanath by a cobra with seven or more hoods spread behind his head in a posture similar to that of Mucalinda. An account of his deeds, the Parsvanathacarita from the 9 th c. CE, mentions right in the first verse the “female serpent (Padmavati) carrying the umbrella” ( Boll é e 2008 , p. 4). Together with her spouse, the serpent king Dharana, with his “decorative, sparkling canopy of jewel-crested hoods” 27 (ibid., p. 28), she wards o ff a demon attacking them with rain, rocks and lightning When Mucalinda and the other Nagas of Buddhist mythology (cf. Section 3.2 ) spread to Southeast and East Asia, they lost their mostly cobra-like shape, either merging with the Chinese dragons ( long Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 26 ( a ) ( b ) Figure 4. Mucalinda, a fiveor seven-headed Nāga king, rises like an aureole behind the Buddha, who is sitting in the lotos position ( padm ā sana ): ( a ) Brass figure from Thailand, purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religion in 1957 (photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Mq 027); ( b ) Gipsum replica of a Burmese figure, probably from Bagan, 11 th—12 th c. CE (photo by Georg Dörr, acc.nr. Mq 030; for a detailed examination on their provenience, cf. (Luu 2017)) The iconography of Jainism identifies Pārśvanāth by a cobra with seven or more hoods spread behind his head in a posture similar to that of Mucalinda. An account of his deeds, the P ā r ś van ā thacarita from the 9 th c. CE, mentions right in the first verse the “female serpent (Padmāvatī ) carrying the umbrella” (Bollée 2008, p. 4). Together with her spouse, the serpent king Dharaṇa, with his “decorative, sparkling canopy of jewel-crested hoods” 27 (ibid., p. 28), she wards off a demon attacking them with rain, rocks and lightning. When Mucalinda and the other Nāgas of Buddhist mythology (cf. Section 3.2) spread to Southeast and East Asia, they lost their mostly cobra-like shape, either merging with the Chinese dragons ( long 龍 ) or other reptiles 28 The mythological traditions of the Himalaya highlight their function as providers and controllers of water, which probably links these Nāgas to the early Vedic serpent Vṛ tra (cf. Deeg 2016). A Buddhist text from the earliest centuries CE 29 says of itself that it 27 Verse 139: prasphurad-ratna-phaṇa-maṇḍapa-maṇḍita. 28 For the Rmeet of upland Laos, for instance, Nāgas are earth spirits whose “horses” are boas with crowns (Guido Sprenger, pers. comm.). Inhabitants of Komodo in eastern Indonesia sometimes identify the famous “dragons” of their island, Varanus komodoensis , as Nāgas (Annette Hornbacher, pers. comm.). 29 “The Mah ā m ā y ū r ī Vidy ā r ā jñ ī , the ‘Queen of spells (called) the Great One of the Peacock’, of which […] translations into Chinese are extant from the beginning of the 4 th century A.D. onward” (Schmithausen 1997, p. 53) is an “apotropaic text [seeming] to prefigure aspects of Tantra or Mantrāyana Buddhism” (ibid., p. 51). Rather than pacifying and converting the Nāgas by means of maitr ī (“friendship” or “compassion”), this text shows “a typically Tantric break-through of the ‘natural’ attitude of counter- (or even preventive) aggression” (ibid., p. 56). For example, malevolent demons are “threatened with having their head split […], ) or other reptiles 28 The mythological traditions of the Himalaya highlight their function as providers and controllers of water, which probably links these Nagas to the early Vedic serpent Vrtra (cf Deeg 2016 ). A Buddhist text from the earliest centuries CE 29 says of itself that it should “be recited in case of drought ( anavrsti ) or too much rain ( ativrsti )” (ibid., p. 57), to protect humans from the natural forces controlled by Nagas. Both these aims in dealing with Nagas are outlined in the Buddhist Svayam . bh u-Purana and the Nepalikabh upavam . s¯avali of Nepal, as well as in the Hindu Nilamata-Purana and the Rajatara ˙ngini of Kashmir. The latter, for instance, has it that when a Buddhist dynasty tried to end the worship of Nagas at the springs and mountain lakes of Kashmir, the deities responded by sending down hailstorms and heavy snowfall 30 In Kathmandu, on the other hand, “relief from famine and making of rain” ( durbhiksa-´santi-vrsti-karana ) is e ff ected by the nagas¯adhana ritual, meaning “subduing”, “taming” or “utilizing the Nagas” 31 Both the valleys of Kathmandu in Nepal and Srinagar in Kashmir are prehistoric lake basins and appear in the myths of their respective Purana s as such. Both of these primordial lakes are said to have been populated by Nagas, of which a few still remain in contemporary smaller lakes, Lake Dal in 26 My transl. from Bhagavatapurana 5.25.4–5: yasya ˙nghrikamalayugalarunavisadanakhamanisandamandalesv ahipatayah. [ . . ] svavadanani parisphuratkundalaprabhamanditagandasthalany atimanoharani pramuditamanasah. khalu vilokayanti // 4 // yasyaiva hi nagarajakum¯arya asisa a´sasanas carva ˙ngavalayavilasitavisadavipuladhavalasubhagarucirabhujarajatastambhesv agurucandanaku ˙nkumapa ˙nkanulepenavalimpamanas [ . . ] arunakarunavalokanayanavadanaravinda ˙m savrida ˙m kila vilokayanti // 5 // (accessed on gretilorg ). 27 Verse 139: prasphurad-ratna-phana-mandapa-mandita 28 For the Rmeet of upland Laos, for instance, Nagas are earth spirits whose “horses” are boas with crowns (Guido Sprenger, pers. comm.). Inhabitants of Komodo in eastern Indonesia sometimes identify the famous “dragons” of their island, Varanus komodoensis , as Nagas (Annette Hornbacher, pers. comm.) 29 “The Mahamay uri Vidyarajñi , the ‘Queen of spells (called) the Great One of the Peacock’, of which [ . . ] translations into Chinese are extant from the beginning of the 4 th century A.D. onward” ( Schmithausen 1997 , p. 53) is an “apotropaic text [seeming] to prefigure aspects of Tantra or Mantr¯ayana Buddhism” (ibid., p. 51). Rather than pacifying and converting the Nagas by means of maitri (“friendship” or “compassion”), this text shows “a typically Tantric break-through of the ‘natural’ attitude of counter- (or even preventive) aggression” (ibid., p. 56). For example, malevolent demons are “threatened with having their head split [ . . ], the neutralization of poison [is] metaphorically called ‘killing’ [and] the wish that one’s own enemies should be destroyed, burnt, cooked or killed is expressed” (ibid.) 30 “Nordindien, Kasmir, aber auch Gandhara waren bekannt für ihre Nagakulte an Quellen oder Seen. Die kasmirische Chronik Rajatara ˙ngini berichtet, dass die Buddhisten zur Zeit Nag¯arjunas die Verehrung der naga s abscha ff en ließen, und diese dafür eine Schneekatastrophe schickten, worauf die Verehrungen wieder aufgenommen wurden (Raj.1.179 f.)” ( Deeg 2005 , p. 281) 31 Svayam . bh upurana 8, Sanskrit text in ( Deeg 2008 , p. 110).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Bear, Tha, Trees, Mahata, Nagah, Plant, Daksha, Plan, Burn, Aditya, Megha, Karma, Myth, Asa, Laid, Tiger, Nectar, Lion, Wager, Danger, Lions, Vala, Sons, Heavenly, Putri, Anjana, Turn, Brown, Bore, Parrot, Ayata, Cousins, Dasa, Drops, Eagles, Rajan, Pour, Tena, Deer, Suki, Shon, Kusa, Tato, Wins, Tigers, Black, Tada, Mrt, Karman]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 11 of 26 Srinagar and Lake Taudaha near Kathmandu. This is not the place to dwell on the extensive literature on these textual traditions, which I will do in further on the watery aspect of Nagas in the Himalaya There, the Nagas’ animal nature is less accentuated than in the Mahabharata , whose Pan-Indian plots and characters are taken up by the local Purana texts 3.1. The Nagas of the Mahabharata How serpent-like are the Nagas in those classical texts that have had the strongest impact on Hindu-imaginaries up until today? Originating between the 3 rd c. BCE and the 3 rd c. CE, the Mahabharata presents the Nagas as shape-shifters, children of Kadru (“the Reddish-Brown one”, sometimes identified with the earth itself 32 ), enemies of the bird Garuda and inhabitants of the netherworld ( patala ). The most elaborated among these mythical and symbolic motifs, which remain prominent today, is their strong connection to water and rain. In a story in which the Nagas are in danger of all being killed in a sacrificial fire, some Nagas suggest a plan for rescue: “We will become clouds, equipped with lightning, to pour out rain on this burning fire!” 33 However, the Nagas are not—at least not in all respects—“supernatural”. The same long myth also explains these animals’ actual characteristics: their laying of eggs 34 , their rejuvenating themselves by shedding their skin, and their forked tongues. When some drops of the nectar of “im-mortality” ( a-mrt ) were spilled on the kusa grass, they “licked the grass; thus, in this act, the tongues of the snakes became two-fold, while the grass became holy by the touch of amrt .” 35 The Mahabharata gives more good reasons for translating naga as “snakes”, as van Buitenen does Chapter 1.60 presents a somewhat confusing genealogy of the Nagas: “Surasa bore the serpents, Kadru the snakes. Anala produced seven kinds of trees that bear round fruit. ´Suki was also Anala’s daughter, and Surasa was the daughter of Kadru.” 36 Nagas are uncles of the Pannagas, the “low creepers”—van Buitenen translates naga and pannaga as “serpents” and “snakes”, respectively. Both are also cousins of the trees, vultures, eagles, horses, cows, elephants, lions and tigers, monkeys, bears, deer, parrots, geese and ducks, kites, owls (ibid., pp. 55–67), each species having an own divine mother, who is a daughter or granddaughter of Daksa, a son of Brahma, the grandfather ( pitamaha ) of all beings. Are they thus animals, being so neatly interwoven into the genealogy of other plant and animal species? One might think so, but, only one chapter previously, Mahabharata 1.59.10–50 describes the Nagas as sons of Kadru and as cousins of Garuda, Aruna and Varuna, of the ¯Aditya gods, of the Daityas, Danavas and other demons, of the heavenly singers ( gandharva ), of the nymphs ( apsaras ), of the nectar of immortality, of the cows and of the brahmins. Again, one and the same context legitimizes counting the Nagas among the animals as well as among the gods, demons and other supernatural beings When Nagas shift their shape, they often turn into something resembling serpentine form. In one story, their mother Kadru wins a wager against her sister Vinata, who had—rightly!—claimed that the horse Ucchaisrava only had white hair in its tail. “Turn into black hair!” 37 , Kadru orders her thousand sons, the Nagas. They first refuse, but are convinced otherwise after Kadru curses them to burn in the great sacrificial fire I have mentioned earlier. This refusal to participate in an act of deceit highlights 32 Cf ´Satapathabrahmana 3.6.2 33 My transl. from Mahabharata 1.33.21: apare tv abruvan nagah. samiddham. jatavedasam / varsair nirvapayisyamo megha bh utva savidyutah. 34 “After some time, the great Kadru (mother of the Nagas) laid a thousand eggs” (My translation from Mahabharata 1.14.12: kalena mahata kadrur andanam. dasatir dasa / janayam asa) 35 My transl. from Mahabharata 1.30.19-20: [ . . ] darbham . s te lilihus tada // 19 // tato dvaidhikrta jihva sarpanam. tena karman.a / abhavam . s camrtasparsad darbhas te ‘tha pavitrinah. (ibid.) 36 Transl. by ( van Buitenen 1973 , p. 150), of Mahabharata 1.60.66: surasajanayan nagan rajan kadr us ca pannagan / sapta pindaphalan vrksan analapi vyaj¯ayata / analayah. suki putri kadrvas tu surasa suta // 66 // (accessed on gretilorg ). 37 Vala bh utva añjana-prabhah. (ibid., 1.18.6).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Abode, Saila, Nila, Gold, Broad, Dave, Iron, Residence, Golden, Lord, Sting, Panca, Worlds, Kamar, Honest, Jewels, Krishna, Nadan, Chain, Danda, Shava, Book, Maha, Ability, Fell, Shaila, Bhr, Yojana, Big, Samudra, Balah, Natan, Savas, Miles, Visha, Akaram, Pare, Iva, Rich, Visa, Ghee, Blue, Ete, Small, Rising, Eagle, Matta, Bars]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 12 of 26 their morally ambiguous standpoint, to some extent honest but flexible. After all, “their poison is pungent and potent, their teeth sting and their strength is huge” 38 Nevertheless, the curse cannot be averted, and a long chain of stories spanning 39 chapters ( van Buitenen 1973 , pp. 71–123) leads to the sacrifice of serpents. When it finally begins, its power draws them from everywhere, throws them through the air into the flames and reveals their manifold shapes: (20) They were seven-, twoor five-headed, some had poison [as strong] as the fire of [the end of] time, they were terrible. Hundreds of thousands of them were poured into the fire [like ghee], (21) big-bodied ones, immensely strong ones, rising like the peaks of mountains, spanning one or two yojanas ( = units of several miles). (22) [Although] some of them had the power to take the shape they wanted to take, or to go wherever they wanted to go, [although] their poison was fierce like a blazing fire, they all burned in that sacrifice, forced down by the brahmins’ curse 39 Despite their supernatural powers and their ability to talk, to act morally and immorally, they are nevertheless characterized as snakes: (20) Twisted pitiably and shouting for one another, (21) darting asunder, hissing, winding their tails and heads around each other, they fell into the glowing flames. (22) White, black and blue ones, the old and the young, roaring and howling terribly, they fell into the annihilating fire [ . . ]; some [looked] like elephant trunks, some were [themselves] big and strong like maddened elephants. Many of them, great and small, multicolored, poisonous serpents, powerful snakes looking like iron bars, fell into the fire, damned by their mother’s curse 40 Rather like sea snakes and eels than like actual cobras, the Nagas are said to live in samudra , the ocean, “inhabited by thousands of manifold and fierce living beings, impenetrable, filled with turtles and crocodiles, a rich source of all kinds of jewels, the abode of the god Varuna and of the Nagas, the lord / husband of the rivers, the residence of the flames of the underworld.” 41 As chthonic beings, the Nagas are set in opposition to the bird Garuda 42 ( Dave 1985 ). The long story of how they became enemies, as told in the first book of the Mahabharata , is probably the most elaborated version of the enmity between serpent and eagle, which is a common motif in iconographies throughout the world ( Wittkower 1939 ). As the opponents of Garuda, the Nagas appear in sculptures and other depictions throughout the Hindu and Buddhist worlds, everywhere changing their specific shape in accordance to local imagination and style (Figure 5 ). 38 Tigma-virya-visa hy ete danda-s uka maha-balah. (ibid., verse 11) 39 My transl. from Mahabharata 1.52.20 ff : saptasirsa dvisirsas ca pañcasirsas tathapare / kalanalavisa ghora hutah. satasahasrasah // 20 // mahakaya mahaviryah. ´sailasr. ˙ngasamucchrayah / yojanayamavistara dviyojanasamayatah // 21 // kamar upah kamagama diptanalavisolbanah / dagdhas tatra mahasatre brahmadandanipiditah // 22 // (ibid.) 40 My transl. from Mahabharata 1.47.20 ff : vivestamanah. krpana ahvayantah. parasparam // 20 // visphurantah. svasantas ca vestayantas tatha pare / pucchaih. sirobhis ca bhr.sam. citrabhanum. prapedire // 21 // svetah. krsnas ca nilas ca sthavirah. si´savas tatha / ruvanto bhairavan nadan petur dipte vibhavasau // 22 // . . hastihasta ivapare / matta iva ca mata ˙nga mahakaya mahabalah // 24 // uccavacas ca bahavo nanavarna visolbanah / ghoras ca parighaprakhya dandas uka mahabalah / prapetur agnav uraga matrvagdandapiditah // 25 // (ibid.) 41 My transl. from Mahabharata 1.19.4–6: sattvais ca bahusahasrair nanar upaih. samavrtam / ugrair nityam anadhrsyam k urmagrahasamakulam // akaram . sarvaratnanam alayam . varunasya ca / naganam alayam . ramyam uttamam . saritam . patim // patalajvalanavasam (ibid.) 42 The Mahabharata describes Garuda as the ancestor of all birds of prey and as an eater of serpents, tortoises and elephants As a zoonyme, garuda can thus be as broad as specific, being the name of the Himalayan Golden Eagle and of a South Indian Sea-Eagle, which is also called nagasi , “serpent-eater” ( Dave 1985 , pp. 199 f.).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Sri Lanka, Stand, Creation, Shri, Lanka, Blessed, Hands, Garu, Alaya, Storm, Tam, Fight, Atha, Friedrich, Rest, Anant, Julius, Deep, Nagaraja, Far, Mask, Heiler, Pali, Ayam, Kho, Ssa, Dance, Pre, Lie]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 13 of 26 Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 26 serpents, powerful snakes looking like iron bars, fell into the fire, damned by their mother’s curse 40 Rather like sea snakes and eels than like actual cobras, the Nāgas are said to live in samudra , the ocean, “inhabited by thousands of manifold and fierce living beings, impenetrable, filled with turtles and crocodiles, a rich source of all kinds of jewels, the abode of the god Varuṇa and of the Nāgas, the lord/husband of the rivers, the residence of the flames of the underworld.” 41 As chthonic beings, the Nāgas are set in opposition to the bird Garuḍa 42 (Dave 1985). The long story of how they became enemies, as told in the first book of the Mah ā bh ā rata , is probably the most elaborated version of the enmity between serpent and eagle, which is a common motif in iconographies throughout the world (Wittkower 1939). As the opponents of Garuḍa, the Nāgas appear in sculptures and other depictions throughout the Hindu and Buddhist worlds, everywhere changing their specific shape in accordance to local imagination and style (Figure 5). ( a ) ( b ) Figure 5. ( a ) Balinese wooden sculpture of a serpent being devoured by Garuḍa (purchased 1959 by Friedrich Heiler for the Marburg Museum of Religion, acc.nr. Ar 079); ( b ) Nâga-râssa from Sri Lanka, used for mask dance performances, in which the Nāgas fight against their enemies, the Grurlâ, i.e., Garuḍa (purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religion in 1967 from Julius Konietzko, photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Lp 227). 40 My transl. from Mah ā bh ā rata 1.47.20 ff: viveṣṭamānāḥ kṛpaṇā āhvayantaḥ parasparam // 20 // visphurantaḥ śvasantaś ca veṣṭayantas tathā pare / pucchaiḥ śirobhiś ca bhṛśaṃ citrabhānuṃ prapedire // 21 // śvetāḥ kṛṣṇāś ca nīlāś ca sthavirāḥ śiśavas tathā / ruvanto bhairavān nādā n petur dīpte vibhāvasau // 22 // … hastihastā ivāpare / mattā iva ca mātaṅgā mahākāyā mahābalāḥ // 24 // uccāvacāś ca bahavo nānāvarṇā viṣolbaṇāḥ / ghorāś ca parighaprakhyā dandaśūkā mahābalāḥ / prapetur agnāv uragā mātṛvāgdaṇḍapīḍitāḥ // 25 //(ibid.). 41 My transl. from Mah ā bh ā rata 1.19.4–6: sattvaiś ca bahusāhasrair nānārūpaiḥ samāvṛ tam / ugrair nityam anādhṛṣyaṃ kūrmagrāhasamākulam // ākaraṃ sarvaratnānā m ālayaṃ varuṇasya ca / nāgānām ālayaṃ ramyam uttamaṃ saritāṃ patim // pātālajvalanāvā sam (ibid.). 42 The Mah ā bh ā rata describes Garuḍa as the ancestor of all birds of prey and as an eater of serpents, tortoises and elephants. As a zoonyme, garu ḍ a can thus be as broad as specific, being the name of the Himalayan Golden Eagle and of a South Indian Sea-Eagle, which is also called n ā g āśī , “serpent-eater” (Dave 1985, pp. 199 f.). Figure 5. ( a ) Balinese wooden sculpture of a serpent being devoured by Garuda (purchased 1959 by Friedrich Heiler for the Marburg Museum of Religion, acc.nr. Ar 079); (b) N â ga-r â ssa from Sri Lanka, used for mask dance performances, in which the Nagas fight against their enemies, the Grurl â , i.e., Garuda (purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religion in 1967 from Julius Konietzko, photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Lp 227) Transcending this enmity, the Hindu God Visnu is served both by Garuda as his vehicle and by the Naga ´Sesa 43 as his bed (Figure 3 )—a motif which shares a common Hindu or pre-Hindu antetype with the motive of the Buddha sitting on the coils and beneath the hoods of Mucalinda 3.2. Nagas Incorporated into Buddhism How are the Nagas portrayed in Buddhism, as compared to their portrayal in the classical Hindu sources discussed so far? Like in the Mahabharata , Naga bodies stand out with serpent-like features, but also in their capacity to shapeshift. Di ff erences may lie in the religious evaluation of their nature and the role animals can play in a psychology and worldview focused on mastering one’s own sensuality, aggression and other drives The Naga king Mucalinda uses the coils of his body to protect the newly “awoken” Buddha, who is still in deep meditation, from a thunderstorm (Figure 4 ). When the storm is over and the Buddha opens his eyes, “he loosened his windings from the body of the Blessed One, made his own appearance disappear, created the appearance of a youth, and stationed himself in front of the Blessed One, raising his clasped hands, and paying reverence to the Blessed One” 44 ( Mahavagga I.3.3). Thus, the first being to honor the awakening of the Buddha is a Naga. This might have added to the appeal for Buddhist kings to trace their genealogy back to Nagas ( DeCaroli 2004 , p. 165; Przyluski 1925 ; Bloss 1973 , pp. 40 f.) 43 ´Ses is the “rest” that remains after the destruction of the universe and before its re-creation, and is thus also called anant , the “endless” or “eternal” one 44 Transl. by ( Oldenberg 1881 ); Pali text from gretilorg : “atha kho Mucalindo nagaraja sakabhavana nikkhamitva bhagavato k¯ayam . sattakkhattum . bhogehi parikkhipitva upari muddhani mahantam . phanam . karitva atthasi”.

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Thai, Har, Monks, Tai, Gata, Rules, Yada, Goes, Final, Falls, Safe, Von, Born, Tira, Ayati, Going, Nago]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 14 of 26 On the other hand, the same fundamental Theravada Buddhist text 45 makes it clear that Nagas are animals, and may thus not enter any monastery ( vihara ) to become monks ( bhikku ) Mahavagga I.63 tells the story of a Naga who was “aggrieved at, ashamed of, and conceived aversion for his having been born as a serpent” 46 To “become released from being a serpent, and quickly to obtain human nature, [the Naga], in the shape of a youth, went to the bhikkhus , [who] conferred on him the pabbajja and upasampada ordinations.” 47 Once, when he felt safe from discovery, he “fell asleep (in his natural shape). The whole vihara [monastery] was filled with the snake’s body [ ahi ]; his windings jutted out of the window.” 48 Now, the Buddha himself tells him: “You serpents [ nagas ] are not capable of (spiritual) growth in this doctrine and discipline” 49 , and the Naga cries and goes away This story, while it describes Nagas as shapeshifters, still calls them “animals”— tiracchanagata, from Skt tirascina-gata, “going horizontally, not erect”. The Buddha himself uses this word in his final address to the monks: “There are two occasions, O bhikkus , on which a serpent [ naga ] (who has assumed human shape) manifests his true nature: when he has sexual intercourse with a female of his species [ sajati ], and if he thinks himself safe (from discovery) and falls asleep [ . . ]. Let an animal [ tiracchanagata ], O bhikkus , that has not received the upasampada ordination, not receive it; if it has received it, let it be expelled.” 50 Thai narratives further elaborate this event, having the Naga plead that “if his religious desires could not be fulfilled through monkhood, at least he should be remembered by calling every initiate nag before ordination” ( Tambiah 1970 , p. 107). This is the tradition of Thai monks who renounce “the attributes of nag —virility or sexuality, and similar attributes of secular life” (ibid.; cf Luu 2017 , p. 84; Figure 6 ). 45 The Mahavagga of the Khandaka is part of the Vinayapitaka, a Pali language collection of monastic rules for monks and nuns Its text dates back at least into the 7 th Century CE, but is probably much older. Dating the text by the use of the arya -metre and assuming, that texts were brought to Sri Lanka from India, von Hinüber cautiously suggests that the text might be “older than about 250 BCE” ( von Hinüber 1996 , p. 19) 46 Transl. by ( Oldenberg 1881 ) from Pali “nago nagayoniya attiyati har¯ayati jigucchati” ( Mahavagga 1.63.1, accessed on gretilorg ). 47 Transl. by ( Oldenberg 1881 ) from Pali “nagayoniya ca parimucceyyam . khippañ ca manussattam . patilabheyyan [ . . ] so nago mana-vakavannena bhikkh u upasamkamitva pabbajjam. yaci” ( Mahavagga 1.63.1–2, accessed on gretilorg ). 48 Transl. by ( Oldenberg 1881 ) from Pali “so nago [ . . ] vissattho niddam. okkami. Sabbo viharo ahina punno, vatapanehi bhoga nikkhanta honti” ( Mahavagga 1.63.1–2, accessed on gretilorg ). 49 Transl. by ( Oldenberg 1881 ) from Pali “tumhe khv’; attha naga avir ulhidhamma imasmim. dhammavinaye” ( Mahavagga 1.63.4, accessed on gretilorg ). 50 Transl. by ( Oldenberg 1881 ) from Pali “dve ‘me bhikkhave paccaya nagassa sabhavapatukammaya, yada ca sajatiya methunam . dhammam . patisevati, yada ca vissattho niddam . okkamati [ . . ]. tiracchanagato bhikkhave anupasampanno na upasampadetabbo, upasampanno nasetabbo” ( Mahavagga 1.63.5, accessed on gretilorg ).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Ideal, Dharma, Work, Gar, Ulrike, Land, Sutherland, State, Nagata, Caste, Jeep]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 15 of 26 Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 15 of 26 [ tiracch ā nagata ], O bhikkus , that has not received the upasampadā ordination, not receive it; if it has received it, let it be expelled.” 50 Thai narratives further elaborate this event, having the Nāga plead that “if his religious desires could not be fulfilled through monkhood, at least he should be remembered by calling every initiate nag before ordination” (Tambiah 1970, p. 107). This is the tradition of Thai monks who renounce “the attributes of nag —virility or sexuality, and similar attributes of secular life” (ibid.; cf. Luu 2017, p. 84; Figure 6). Figure 6. Helmet used for the ordination of Burmese novices (purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religions in 2012 by Ulrike Jeep, photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Mq 152). Nāgas can represent the animal part of the human condition, the inner wildness before becoming civilized and converted to the doctrine. The many Nāga figures in local Buddhist myths work as symbols of pre-Buddhist wildness and of older religions (cf. Bloss 1973) who, by converting to Buddhism, help to integrate local kingdoms and local beliefs into a Buddhist superstructure: “The context of Buddhist doctrine posits a totally revolutionized society where caste distinctions and hierarchies of birth are superseded by hierarchies-based upon understanding, religious attainment, and service. Within this context, metaphors of otherness are employed, such as the yakkha , the criminal, the unbeliever, and the n ā ga ” (Sutherland 1991, p. 119). 50 Transl. by (Oldenberg 1881) from Pāli “dve ‘me bhikkhave paccayā nāgassa sabhāvapātukammāya, yadā ca sajātiyā methunaṃ dhammaṃ paṭisevati, yadā ca vissaṭṭho niddaṃ okkamati […]. tiracchānagato bhikkhave anupasampanno na upasampādetabbo, upasampanno nāsetabbo” ( Mah ā vagga 1.63.5, accessed on gretilorg). Figure 6. Helmet used for the ordination of Burmese novices (purchased for the Marburg Museum of Religions in 2012 by Ulrike Jeep, photo by Heike Luu, acc.nr. Mq 152) Nagas can represent the animal part of the human condition, the inner wildness before becoming civilized and converted to the doctrine. The many Naga figures in local Buddhist myths work as symbols of pre-Buddhist wildness and of older religions (cf Bloss 1973 ) who, by converting to Buddhism, help to integrate local kingdoms and local beliefs into a Buddhist superstructure: “The context of Buddhist doctrine posits a totally revolutionized society where caste distinctions and hierarchies of birth are superseded by hierarchies-based upon understanding, religious attainment, and service. Within this context, metaphors of otherness are employed, such as the yakkha , the criminal, the unbeliever, and the naga ” ( Sutherland 1991 , p. 119) Not only in this early and Indian context does Buddhist society and doctrine appear as an ideal civilization, social organization and infrastructure, condensing around monasteries—and opposed to the wildness of Nagas and animals (cf Schmithausen 1997 ). These have to be pacified or driven o ff by the Buddha or by Buddhist agents to make the land inhabitable for humans or to “restore an inhabitable state, which has been disturbed or even destroyed by the acts of the nagas and by the natural forces they unleash” 51 The taming of the Nagas is not always complete. In some accounts, it is more of a compromise—but even in this way, natural catastrophes are brought into some form of order and predictability by being legitimized by the Buddha ( Deeg 2008 , p. 103). The act of overcoming animals and “nature”—an act of “domestication”?—is as ambiguous as the animals and nature themselves: 51 ( Deeg 2008 , p. 93); transl. from German: “Der Buddha steht vor der Aufgabe, diese [nagas] zu befrieden, um entweder das Land für die Menschen erst bewohnbar zu machen oder aber einen bewohnbaren Zustand wiederherzustellen, der durch das Wirken der nagas und der von ihnen entfesselten Naturgewalten gestört oder gar zerstört ist.”

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: De Visser, Fish, Hide, Northern, Thunder, Wine, Western, Delivery, Pearl, Pair, Child, Tale, Tales, Suso, Spring, Prince, Wani, Traveler, Pakistan, Cut, Princess, Hummel, Precious, Marvelous, Toyo, Dam, Bine, Pacific, Kelsey, Tama, Visser, Pearls, Philippi, Till, Legacy, Girl, Gopala, Caroline, Swat, Legends, Shinto, Sword, House, Spirit]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 16 of 26 Mucalinda comes to the Buddha and serves him freely, whereas he subdues other Nagas, such as Apalala and Gopala in the upper Indus basin, against their will (cf Deeg 2016 , pp. 96–113) Buddhism not only spread Indian Nagas across the greater region to install them as the force of wilderness to be expelled or tamed, as in the Sri Lankan Mahavihara chronicles ( Deeg 2005 , pp. 159, 563); throughout East and Southeast Asia, its propagators also dealt with already-worshipped, autochthonous dragons and serpent deities. Adapting their mythology, Buddhist stories, in turn, influenced the local mythologies Long , the famous Chinese dragon, serves to translate the naga of Buddhist Sanskrit sources into Chinese, thereby fusing into an inseparable new entity (cf de Visser 1913 ). Japanese dragons, in turn, incorporated features of originally Japanese serpent spirits ( Kelsey 1981 ). They bring rain, like Hindu Nags in the Western Himalaya (cf Handa 2004 , pp. 140 f.) or their Tibetan counterparts, the kLu ( Hummel 1991 ), none of which can be traced back fully to Buddhist stories The water dragons of China and Japan act amorally, potentially as harmful or beneficial as the rain itself. To control them or to dispel them—like animals—people allegedly made use of their aversion against iron. To make it rain, they annoyed and stirred them up by throwing iron into the ponds in which they lived ( de Visser 1913 , pp. 173, 235); when the building of a dam was hindered by dragons, they could be driven o ff by piling up iron nearby (ibid., p. 70). Like wild animals, they are either tamed and made use of or, when they cause damage, scared o ff like crows Buddhist and Shinto traditions accept the animal-like features of humans, even of the most exalted ones—and perhaps their relationship to serpents gives them a little other-worldly and thus superhuman touch. The Kojiki , a Shinto collection of myths composed in the early 8 th Century as propaganda for the emperors’ family, mixes serpentine descent into their genealogy. One story ( Kojiki , pp. 42–46) has “the daughter of the sea-deity” ( Philippi 1969 , p. 151), Toyo-tama-bine, having a child with Po-wori-no-mikoto, who is the great-grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu and the grandfather of the first emperor of Japan, Jinmu Tenno. Not unlike Melusine in Western European legends, she warns Po-wori not to watch her delivery, but “he watched in secret as she was about to give birth; she turned into a giant crocodile 52 and went crawling and slithering around” (ibid., p. 157) It is likely that this sea goddess or spirit does not only derive from the fish-like mythical beings of the Pacific, but also from South Asian Nagis 53 Be the princess of the sea a Nagi, a crocodile, or even a shark, in any case, her legacy within the Japanese emperors’ family is a non-human bodily trait. According to a tale from the fifteenth century, the Emperor ¯ Ojin (circa 270–310 CE) “had a dragon’s tail, because he was a descendant of the sea-god (Jimmu Tenn o, his ancestor, being the grandson of the sea god’s daughter). To hide this tail he invented the suso or skirt” ( de Visser 1913 , p. 145). In a completely di ff erent setting, the marriage between a Naga girl and a human prince in the Swat valley of Northern Pakistan also results in their o ff spring having awkward, animalistic features. As the Chinese Buddhist traveler Xuanzang recounts in the 7 th Century, “every time he went to rest by the side of his wife from her head there appeared the nine-fold Naga crest. The husband, in disgust, waited till she slept and then cut o ff the serpent crest with his sword. In consequence the descendants of the royal pair were ever a ffl icted with headache” ( Vogel 1926 , p. 34) 52 Wani —which, according to ( Philippi 1969 , p. 407), might also denote a serpentine being or shark 53 Although “strikingly similar tales have been found in Indonesia, in the Caroline Islands, and among the American Indians of the Pacific northwest” (ibid., p. 148, fn. 1), I assume a Naga-related background to this story, for Toyo-tama-bine gives her husband a “tide-raising jewel” and a “tide-ebbing jewel” (ibid., p. 44). Nagas are often associated with nagmani s or nagratna s, marvelous jewels which can illuminate the darkness or restore life ( Vogel 1926 , pp. 25, 77) or provide “food and drink in plenty” (ibid., p. 149). Chinese dragons carry “Thunder-pearls” ( leizhu ) in their mouths, which can “illuminate a whole house during the night”, or “replace wine” ( de Visser 1913 , p. 88) and are probably related to the Buddhist “cintamani or precious pearl which grants all desires” (ibid., p. 107). Their playing with these pearls or with balls causes thunder and rain (ibid., pp. 103–8).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Gali, Gap, Jim, Double, Peace, Race, Crown, Joy, Bridges, Smoke, Mark, Brightness, Wander, Glory, Rays, Slaughter, Sandal, Speak, Bridge, Quick, Fall, Shore, Yon, Uda, Gem, Mine, Boyd, Scales, Gems]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 17 of 26 Having headaches in eternity seems much worse than covertly accepting one’s inner, animal nature, if these are the alternatives. On the other hand, Nagas from the Hindukush seem vulnerable to headaches even when unharmed (cf Deeg 2008 , p. 99) The taming of Nagas by Buddhist agents can be an act of suppression as well as of calming, “ordering and harmonizing these parochial deities, who represent the ambiguous forces of nature” ( Bloss 1973 , p. 52). While I would not go as far as interpreting these stories as a call for acceptance between humans and animals or civilization and wildness, in many of the Jataka stories about the Buddha’s previous lives, he often appears as an animal, sometimes as a Naga (cf Vogel 1926 , pp. 132–65) The Nagananda (“joy of the Nagas”), a play ascribed to the North Indian king Harsa (circa 590–647 CE), is about one of these previous existences, Jim utavahana, who sacrifices himself to end the massive slaughter of Nagas by Garuda. Ending their enmity, he overcomes the conflicts and violence attributed to nature. Finally, convinced of the wrongness of his killing and of his huge appetite, Garuda leaves the Nagas in peace: “Now let the race of Nagas wander happily in the mighty ocean—at times stretching from shore to shore like bridges, at times taken for whirlpools, through the coiling of their bodies—and at times resembling continents, from the multitude of their hoods, large as alluvial islands. Again, let the damsels of the Nagas in yon grove of sandal trees celebrate joyfully this glory of thine, thinking lightly of the fatigue, though their bodies faint with the exertion, and though their cheeks, browned by the touch of the rays of the early sun, seem as if bedaubed with red lead, while their hair let fall to their feet resembles the darkness of clouds” ( Nagananda V.102 f., transl Boyd 1999 , pp. 45 f.) These verses elegantly express the double nature of the Nagas, whose animal bodies wind through the sea, while at least the females have more hair and feet than any serpent. In their human shape, they also have features of cobras – but these can be overlooked, as it happens to Garuda in a dramatic climax of the play. Naga prince ´Sa ˙nkhac uda mocks him for this error: “The error is a likely one indeed! Not to mention the mark of the swastika on the breast, are there not scales on my body? Do you not count my two tongues as I speak? Nor see these three hoods of mine, the compressed wind hissing through them in my insupportable anguish, while the brightness of my gems is distorted by the thick smoke from the fire of my direful poison?” (ibid., V. 93, p. 42) 3.3. Nagas and Serpents in Modern Indian Movies, Comics, and Literature After examining how the Buddhist, epic, and iconographic portrayals of Nagas indicated a complex ambiguity of human and animal features, a quick look into modern Hindu imagery reveals astonishing continuities as well as transformations over the millennia. The self-description of the Naga ´Sa ˙nkhac uda from the Nagananda play can bridge the gap between 7 th Century theatre and 20 th Century films and literature. To give just a few examples: serpent hoods above the human head (or, more commonly, as part of a Naga’s crown) can be seen in Naag Panchami (1972) 54 , in Nache Nagin Gali Gali (1989), and in Sheshnaag (1990). The notion of serpents carrying gems in or on their head reappears most famously in Nagina (1984) and gives movies like Naagmani (1991) its name In such films, Nag mythology continues to be developed further. Most are based on the more folkloristic than classical stories in which Nagas appear unequivocally as animals. Especially the folktales around the shapeshifting icchadhari nag s—snakes, who after a long penance have gained the ability to turn into humans—have inspired numerous films. Right at the beginning of Nagin (1976), a protagonist explains that an Icchadhari Nag is a snake, who, after a hundred years, 54 Like most of the following movies, Naag Panchami , which tells the story of Mansa Devi (cf 2015 ; Smith 1985 ): It can be easily found on Youtube ( https: // www.youtube.com / watch?v = VmrX-PxLZ 74 , last accessed on 23 May 2019).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Par, Aur, Change, Man, Deta, Jane, Beauty, Rah, Motto, Sau, Antar, Hui, Amish, Present, Mish, Field, Hold, Koi, Amle, Cha, Sins, Arm, Sal, Yoni, Ney, Yah, Dhar, Nagraj, Khuli, Jab, Bara, Reading, Mathe, Open, Guide, Lena, Fixed, Kalima, Agni, Marry, Sarir, Dhaka, Markova, Bal, Cover, Hone, Super]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 18 of 26 has gained supernatural powers and human form 55 The Nagas of these stories are, therefore, primarily animals—and, in the movies, most often women Both the special e ff ects in Nagin and the wonderful dance of the famous actress Shridevi in Nagina highlight their serpentine character in motion: dangerous and sensual. Even in the shape of humans, they are wild and vengeful, especially if a Nagin’s husband is accidentally ( Nagin ) or intentionally ( Nagina ) killed. A Filmi Snake Spotters Field Guide 56 is thus very helpful, although the series Naagin (2015–16), which has been rebroadcast repeatedly in Indian television since its premiere, has since added still new layers of special e ff ects and scales to the serpentine-humanoid skins. The domain of Indian superhero comics, in turn, is ruled by Nagraj , the “king of the Nagas” (1986–present), whose agelessness, “super generative healing”, infrared vision, hypnotism, “poison-bite”, “snake-spit”, and the “Millions of microscopic shape shifting snakes in his body” 57 derive from Naga mythology, from genre-specific expectations and, not least, from zoology Not only do the mythical, comic, and filmic Nagas show, exaggerate or multiply features of biological snakes—they also have an influence on the way serpents are imagined and characterized in modern non-religious Hindi literature. Here, they still are ambivalent and, if only slightly, supernatural. K amle ´ svar ’s short Story Sam . p (“The snake”, 1963) has a paranoid male protagonist who imagines snakes everywhere—“the symbol of danger, of threat, of a hidden evil that is dreaded” ( Markova 2005 , p. 37)—even mistaking the touch of his girlfriend’s arm for a snake. In an older story of the same name written by A j ˜ ney , instead of feeling threatened by a snake a young man and his girlfriend are watching, he admires its beauty—until he suddenly feels the urge to kill it because it looks so vulnerable. The attitude of the male protagonist to the snake reflects his relationship to the woman at his side, for he muses that he “had been rather watching her than the snake” (ibid., p. 34) Nag P uja , “Snake worship”, was written in 1922 by P remcand , one of the earliest modernist writers of South Asia. It is a classical Hindi story of a girl called Tilottama, who is protected by a black cobra—to the extent that it kills all men who want to marry her. The snake, it is said, had in a previous life been “a mighty Yogi, who, as a punishment for becoming arrogant, had to take birth into this existence” 58 . The girl continues to worship the Nag, although he causes so much distress, until finally a zoologist marries her, survives the wedding and brings her to Dhaka. However, she seems to have brought the Nag along with her, either as a personality trait or as an agent of spirit possession: Her face contorted, her brows tightened, her forehead furrowed, her body burning like fire, her eyelids fixed open, her eyes flashed like lightning and discharged blazing flames. Blackness spread on her face. Although her body did not change visibly, one [ . . ] could think she was a Nagin. Sometimes she even hissed 59 Several people I know in India like reading the bestselling fantasy novels of the Shiva Trilogy by A mish . Its second volume is called The Secret of the Nagas, the back cover of which shows the motto: “Today, he is a God. 4000 years ago, he was just a man.” ( Amish 2011 ). In the novels, this does not only hold true for Shiva, the protagonists, but also for the Nagas: “They are cursed people, [ . . ] born with hideous deformities because of the sins of their previous births. Deformities like extra hands or horribly misshapen faces. However, 55 “ Sau sal ke bad sam . p koi hi r up dhar sakte haim ”, minute 5:00 in https: // www.youtube.com / watch?v = _OvFhuQL 5 Yw&t = 302 s , last accessed on 23 May 2019 56 https: // cinemachaatcom / 2011 / 07 / 31 / filmi-snake-spotters-field-guide / , last accessed on 22 July 2019 57 Taken from a list in the Wikipedia article on Nagraj , last accessed on 31 March 2019. Cf https: // www.youtube.com / watch?v = -DmYkiVM 6 LM . 58 Koi bara yogi jab ahamkar karne lagta hai to use dandasvar up is yoni mem. janma lena parta hai ( Premcand 1922 , p. 289) 59 My translation from ( Premcand 1922 , p. 196): Uska mukh vikrt ho jata, bhaumem. tan jatim., mathe par bal par. jate, sarir agni ki bhanti jalne lagta, palkem . khuli rah jatim . , netrom . se jvala-si nikalne lagti aur usmem . se jhulsati hui laptem . nikaltim . , mukh par kalima cha jati aur yadyapi svar up mem . koi vises. antar na dikhayi deta; par na jane kyom . bhram hone lagta, yah koi nagin hai .

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Forest, Citizen, Cutting, Ganga, Cypher, Yamuna, Mash, Peoples, Idea, Fergusson, Oldham, Lose, Aryan, Heart, Next, Maybe, Sweetness, Mass, Culture, Meta, Parts]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 19 of 26 they have tremendous strength and skills. The Naga name alone strikes terror in any citizen’s heart” ( Amish 2008 , p. 61) A mish ’ s Nagas, despite their “deformities”, are humans. This idea is not new, as the next section’s look into the history of scholarly writing on the subject will show 4. Are the Nagas Human? Since the 19 th Century, academic and popular interpretations of the Nagas have held them to be neither animals nor deities—nor both—but, rather, a historical human ethnic group. Similar to the recent Indian fantasy novels, some colonial-period anthropologists imagined the species of Nagas, Garudas, Asuras and Yaksas to be di ff erent pre-Vedic, non-“Aryan” tribes ( Fergusson 1868 ; Oldham 1905 , pp. 16–18). According to Fergusson and others, worshipping serpents and trees was the pre-“Aryan” form of religion in India. In this meta-narrative, the natives, identified with the Vedic Dasyus, became themselves identified with the Nagas (cf Deeg 2008 , p. 92) Historically, it seems unlikely that the Nagas of the Mahabharata , for instance, represent “autochthonous” tribes or religions ( Kosambi 1964 ) of pre-“Aryan” North India—i.e., from a time at least 1500 years before the finalization of the epic texts. Iravati Karve, however, dwells upon the idea that the Nagas were such tribes, symbolically dehumanized by the myth to legitimate genocide. Reading the story in this way, she has to strip the episode of the serpent sacrifice of its plastic descriptions of Nagas as serpents, as shapeshifters, as children of the earth Goddess (cf. Section 3.1 ). Only by ignoring such narrative details can she claim “that the main Mahabharata story has woven into it a subsidiary theme—the feud between the Pandavas and the Takshakas—which incidentally tells us of the colonization of the land by the Aryans” ( Karve 1969 , p. 146). The related story of the Khandava forest, which is burnt down by the heroes Arjuna and Krsna, enables a similar interpretation as a “holocaust” (p. 138) not only against animals, but against human peoples marked as animals: “Many of the animals may not have been animals at all but people belonging to clans having animal names. [ . . ]. From the western Himalayas up to the middle reaches of the Ganga and to the south of the Narmada, the country was shared by the Aryans and the Nagas The Nagas apparently lived along the rivers in the forests while the Aryans preferred a more open country. The house of the Nagaraja Airavata was on the banks of the river Iravati The house of Takshaka was apparently in the Khandava forest on the banks of the Yamuna Many an Aryan king must have acquired new lands by burning or cutting parts of a virgin forest not owned by anyone. However, in the Khandava fire it appears that Krishna and Arjuna had a more audacious plan to possess an entire forest in a part of which happened to be the kingdom of the Takshakas [ . . ]. The land was usurped after a massacre, a massacre which is praised as a valorous deed” (ibid., pp. 143 f.) It remains highly speculative whether any “human qualities of the Nagas are played down” (ibid.) in the Mahabharata in order to legitimize their killing as though they were animals 60 Maybe the Nagas were simply not human at all. We will never know whether the epic gives an account of historical events about the attempted mass annihilation of totemistic clans, who were somewhat closer to “nature”, to flora and fauna, than the “Aryans”, who were unable to value the “sweetness of the forest” (ibid., p. 142). Hopefully, this old Indian holocaust will lose its plausibility alongside the whole Aryan invasion theory In her book on Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship , L aurie C ozad elaborates a related theory, which, to me, seems less implausible than the idea that the Nagas were actually a cypher for pre-Aryan native Indians. In her eyes, snake worship is to be identified with “grass-root” religion ( Cozad 2004 , 60 Of course, while not killing them directly, the burning down of a forest inhabited by humans would mean taking away their means of production, their self-su ffi ciency, independence, culture and religion.

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Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 20 of 26 p. 1) and the resistance against Aryan or Brahmin dominance. Consequentially, she looks to identify such pre-Aryan traces in the earliest texts rather than in the Mahabharata , starting her book with a chapter on the serpent ( ahi ) Vrtra, who holds back the waters, until he is slain by the god Indra: “The brahmin redactors render Vrtra as a demonic character in order to legitimate his defeat at the hand of the heroic Indra. This results in the transference of exclusive control over earthly resources to Indra and those who worship Indra: the brahmin-led ¯ Aryans. I would argue that with the narrative demonization, defeat, and subsequent cooptation of Vrtra’s powers, [ . . ] a pre-established contextual framework centralizing a supernatural snake is dismantled in order to construct one centralizing a brahmin-controlled deity.” ( Cozad 2004 , p. 14) In several passages, C ozad implies that the “pre-established” system of belief in a snake deity was pre-Aryan 61 In her chapter about this complex of the R . g Veda and the Threat of the Sovereign Snake (ibid., pp. 13–22), I would have expected her to at least once mention the possibility that Vrtra is not an autochthonous deity, but a concept brought to India alongside Indo-European languages This is probably the case, as is obvious from the parallel and cognate titles of Indra as “ vrtrahan , ‘ vrtra -smasher’, applied to him over fifty times in the Rigveda” ( West 2007 , p. 246), and of the Old Iranian god V Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 20 of 26 It remains highly speculative whether any “human qualities of the Nagas are played down” (ibid.) in the Mahabharata in order to legitimize their killing as though they were animals 60 Maybe the Nāgas were simply not human at all. We will never know whether the epic gives an account of historical events about the attempted mass annihilation of totemistic clans, who were somewhat closer to “nature”, to flora and fauna, than the “Aryans”, who were unable to value the “sweetness of the forest” (ibid., p. 142). Hopefully, this old Indian holocaust will lose its plausibility alongside the whole Aryan invasion theory. In her book on Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship , L AURIE C OZAD elaborates a related theory, which, to me, seems less implausible than the idea that the Nāgas were actually a cypher for pre-Aryan native Indians. In her eyes, snake worship is to be identified with “grass-root” religion (Cozad 2004, p. 1) and the resistance against Aryan or Brahmin dominance. Consequentially, she looks to identify such pre-Aryan traces in the earliest texts rather than in the Mah ā bh ā rata , starting her book with a chapter on the serpent ( ahi ) Vṛtra, who holds back the waters, until he is slain by the god Indra: “The brahmin redactors render Vṛtra as a demonic character in order to legitimate his defeat at the hand of the heroic Indra. This results in the transference of exclusive control over earthly resources to Indra and those who worship Indra: the brahmin-led Āryans. I would argue that with the narrative demonization, defeat, and subsequent cooptation of Vṛtra’s powers, […] a pre-established contextual framework centralizing a supernatural snake is dismantled in order to construct one centralizing a brahmin-controlled deity.” (Cozad 2004, p. 14). In several passages, C OZAD implies that the “pre-established” system of belief in a snake deity was pre-Aryan 61 In her chapter about this complex of the Ṛ g Veda and the Threat of the Sovereign Snake (ibid., pp. 13–22), I would have expected her to at least once mention the possibility that Vṛtra is not an autochthonous deity, but a concept brought to India alongside Indo-European languages. This is probably the case, as is obvious from the parallel and cognate titles of Indra as “ v ṛ trahan , ‘ v ṛ tra - smasher’, applied to him over fifty times in the Rigveda” (West 2007, p. 246), and of the Old Iranian god V ə r əθ ra γ na, “the slayer of V ə r əθ ra” or the “smiting of resistance” 62 Indra is related to cognate Indo-European weather gods, who fight in a similar manner against dragons or snakes and, as a result of this fight, sometimes also free the waters (ibid., pp. 258 f.). These are strong arguments against the claim that “Indra coopts the powers through which Vṛtra is known—he who ‘scattered about’ the ‘lightning and thunder, rain and hail,’ [ Ṛ gveda 1.32.13: vidyut and tanyatu , miha and hr ā duni ]—to become the supreme god ‘who wields the thunderbolt’ [ Ṛ gveda 1.32.15: vajrab ā hu ]” (Cozad 2004, p. 17). Albeit fascinating, in this case, her “methodological strategy through which we are able to use a conventional religious setting to provide evidence of alternative avenues of religious agency.” (ibid., p. 12) does not work out well. Still, the name and function of Vṛtra not being native to India would not exclude the possibility that “the construction of this supernatural figure predates the incursions 60 Of course, while not killing them directly, the burning down of a forest inhabited by humans would mean taking away their means of production, their self-sufficiency, independence, culture and religion. 61 “Indra is the exclusive property of a particular group of people […], who exclude all but Āryans from their hierarchical social system, thus positioning the indigenous peoples of India and their divine figures outside of this system altogether. The Ṛg Veda thus marks our first encounter with redactors who wish to dismantle a pre-existing contextual framework, one which centralizes the supernatural snake and the desires of indigenous snake worshippers” (Cozad 2004, pp. 17 f.). Unfortunately, the repetition of her own phrasing does not strengthen her argument, which sticks to the simplistic narrative of Āryans invading and suppressing an indigenous culture. 62 The poetic formula “Indra slew the snake ( ahi )” or “Indra slew Vṛtra” occurs throughout the Ṛgveda—but “the specificity of this verbal formula [can be demonstrated] not only in Indic but across most of the related older Indo-European languages over several thousand years in the narration of a specific theme” (Watkins 1995, p. 301)—in Hittite (ibid., pp. 321 f., 448 f.), Greek (ibid., pp. 357 f.), and Old Norse sources (ibid., pp. 414 f.). r Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 20 of 26 It remains highly speculative whether any “human qualities of the Nagas are played down” (ibid.) in the Mahabharata in order to legitimize their killing as though they were animals 60 Maybe the Nāgas were simply not human at all. We will never know whether the epic gives an account of historical events about the attempted mass annihilation of totemistic clans, who were somewhat closer to “nature”, to flora and fauna, than the “Aryans”, who were unable to value the “sweetness of the forest” (ibid., p. 142). Hopefully, this old Indian holocaust will lose its plausibility alongside the whole Aryan invasion theory. In her book on Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship , L AURIE C OZAD elaborates a related theory, which, to me, seems less implausible than the idea that the Nāgas were actually a cypher for pre-Aryan native Indians. In her eyes, snake worship is to be identified with “grass-root” religion (Cozad 2004, p. 1) and the resistance against Aryan or Brahmin dominance. Consequentially, she looks to identify such pre-Aryan traces in the earliest texts rather than in the Mah ā bh ā rata , starting her book with a chapter on the serpent ( ahi ) Vṛtra, who holds back the waters, until he is slain by the god Indra: “The brahmin redactors render Vṛtra as a demonic character in order to legitimate his defeat at the hand of the heroic Indra. This results in the transference of exclusive control over earthly resources to Indra and those who worship Indra: the brahmin-led Āryans. I would argue that with the narrative demonization, defeat, and subsequent cooptation of Vṛtra’s powers, […] a pre-established contextual framework centralizing a supernatural snake is dismantled in order to construct one centralizing a brahmin-controlled deity.” (Cozad 2004, p. 14). In several passages, C OZAD implies that the “pre-established” system of belief in a snake deity was pre-Aryan 61 In her chapter about this complex of the Ṛ g Veda and the Threat of the Sovereign Snake (ibid., pp. 13–22), I would have expected her to at least once mention the possibility that Vṛtra is not an autochthonous deity, but a concept brought to India alongside Indo-European languages. This is probably the case, as is obvious from the parallel and cognate titles of Indra as “ v ṛ trahan , ‘ v ṛ tra - smasher’, applied to him over fifty times in the Rigveda” (West 2007, p. 246), and of the Old Iranian god V ə r əθ ra γ na, “the slayer of V ə r əθ ra” or the “smiting of resistance” 62 Indra is related to cognate Indo-European weather gods, who fight in a similar manner against dragons or snakes and, as a result of this fight, sometimes also free the waters (ibid., pp. 258 f.). These are strong arguments against the claim that “Indra coopts the powers through which Vṛtra is known—he who ‘scattered about’ the ‘lightning and thunder, rain and hail,’ [ Ṛ gveda 1.32.13: vidyut and tanyatu , miha and hr ā duni ]—to become the supreme god ‘who wields the thunderbolt’ [ Ṛ gveda 1.32.15: vajrab ā hu ]” (Cozad 2004, p. 17). Albeit fascinating, in this case, her “methodological strategy through which we are able to use a conventional religious setting to provide evidence of alternative avenues of religious agency.” (ibid., p. 12) does not work out well. Still, the name and function of Vṛtra not being native to India would not exclude the possibility that “the construction of this supernatural figure predates the incursions 60 Of course, while not killing them directly, the burning down of a forest inhabited by humans would mean taking away their means of production, their self-sufficiency, independence, culture and religion. 61 “Indra is the exclusive property of a particular group of people […], who exclude all but Āryans from their hierarchical social system, thus positioning the indigenous peoples of India and their divine figures outside of this system altogether. The Ṛg Veda thus marks our first encounter with redactors who wish to dismantle a pre-existing contextual framework, one which centralizes the supernatural snake and the desires of indigenous snake worshippers” (Cozad 2004, pp. 17 f.). Unfortunately, the repetition of her own phrasing does not strengthen her argument, which sticks to the simplistic narrative of Āryans invading and suppressing an indigenous culture. 62 The poetic formula “Indra slew the snake ( ahi )” or “Indra slew Vṛtra” occurs throughout the Ṛgveda—but “the specificity of this verbal formula [can be demonstrated] not only in Indic but across most of the related older Indo-European languages over several thousand years in the narration of a specific theme” (Watkins 1995, p. 301)—in Hittite (ibid., pp. 321 f., 448 f.), Greek (ibid., pp. 357 f.), and Old Norse sources (ibid., pp. 414 f.). θ ra γ na, “the slayer of V Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 20 of 26 It remains highly speculative whether any “human qualities of the Nagas are played down” (ibid.) in the Mahabharata in order to legitimize their killing as though they were animals 60 Maybe the Nāgas were simply not human at all. We will never know whether the epic gives an account of historical events about the attempted mass annihilation of totemistic clans, who were somewhat closer to “nature”, to flora and fauna, than the “Aryans”, who were unable to value the “sweetness of the forest” (ibid., p. 142). Hopefully, this old Indian holocaust will lose its plausibility alongside the whole Aryan invasion theory. In her book on Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship , L AURIE C OZAD elaborates a related theory, which, to me, seems less implausible than the idea that the Nāgas were actually a cypher for pre-Aryan native Indians. In her eyes, snake worship is to be identified with “grass-root” religion (Cozad 2004, p. 1) and the resistance against Aryan or Brahmin dominance. Consequentially, she looks to identify such pre-Aryan traces in the earliest texts rather than in the Mah ā bh ā rata , starting her book with a chapter on the serpent ( ahi ) Vṛtra, who holds back the waters, until he is slain by the god Indra: “The brahmin redactors render Vṛtra as a demonic character in order to legitimate his defeat at the hand of the heroic Indra. This results in the transference of exclusive control over earthly resources to Indra and those who worship Indra: the brahmin-led Āryans. I would argue that with the narrative demonization, defeat, and subsequent cooptation of Vṛtra’s powers, […] a pre-established contextual framework centralizing a supernatural snake is dismantled in order to construct one centralizing a brahmin-controlled deity.” (Cozad 2004, p. 14). In several passages, C OZAD implies that the “pre-established” system of belief in a snake deity was pre-Aryan 61 In her chapter about this complex of the Ṛ g Veda and the Threat of the Sovereign Snake (ibid., pp. 13–22), I would have expected her to at least once mention the possibility that Vṛtra is not an autochthonous deity, but a concept brought to India alongside Indo-European languages. This is probably the case, as is obvious from the parallel and cognate titles of Indra as “ v ṛ trahan , ‘ v ṛ tra - smasher’, applied to him over fifty times in the Rigveda” (West 2007, p. 246), and of the Old Iranian god V ə r əθ ra γ na, “the slayer of V ə r əθ ra” or the “smiting of resistance” 62 Indra is related to cognate Indo-European weather gods, who fight in a similar manner against dragons or snakes and, as a result of this fight, sometimes also free the waters (ibid., pp. 258 f.). These are strong arguments against the claim that “Indra coopts the powers through which Vṛtra is known—he who ‘scattered about’ the ‘lightning and thunder, rain and hail,’ [ Ṛ gveda 1.32.13: vidyut and tanyatu , miha and hr ā duni ]—to become the supreme god ‘who wields the thunderbolt’ [ Ṛ gveda 1.32.15: vajrab ā hu ]” (Cozad 2004, p. 17). Albeit fascinating, in this case, her “methodological strategy through which we are able to use a conventional religious setting to provide evidence of alternative avenues of religious agency.” (ibid., p. 12) does not work out well. Still, the name and function of Vṛtra not being native to India would not exclude the possibility that “the construction of this supernatural figure predates the incursions 60 Of course, while not killing them directly, the burning down of a forest inhabited by humans would mean taking away their means of production, their self-sufficiency, independence, culture and religion. 61 “Indra is the exclusive property of a particular group of people […], who exclude all but Āryans from their hierarchical social system, thus positioning the indigenous peoples of India and their divine figures outside of this system altogether. The Ṛg Veda thus marks our first encounter with redactors who wish to dismantle a pre-existing contextual framework, one which centralizes the supernatural snake and the desires of indigenous snake worshippers” (Cozad 2004, pp. 17 f.). Unfortunately, the repetition of her own phrasing does not strengthen her argument, which sticks to the simplistic narrative of Āryans invading and suppressing an indigenous culture. 62 The poetic formula “Indra slew the snake ( ahi )” or “Indra slew Vṛtra” occurs throughout the Ṛgveda—but “the specificity of this verbal formula [can be demonstrated] not only in Indic but across most of the related older Indo-European languages over several thousand years in the narration of a specific theme” (Watkins 1995, p. 301)—in Hittite (ibid., pp. 321 f., 448 f.), Greek (ibid., pp. 357 f.), and Old Norse sources (ibid., pp. 414 f.). r Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 20 of 26 It remains highly speculative whether any “human qualities of the Nagas are played down” (ibid.) in the Mahabharata in order to legitimize their killing as though they were animals 60 Maybe the Nāgas were simply not human at all. We will never know whether the epic gives an account of historical events about the attempted mass annihilation of totemistic clans, who were somewhat closer to “nature”, to flora and fauna, than the “Aryans”, who were unable to value the “sweetness of the forest” (ibid., p. 142). Hopefully, this old Indian holocaust will lose its plausibility alongside the whole Aryan invasion theory. In her book on Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship , L AURIE C OZAD elaborates a related theory, which, to me, seems less implausible than the idea that the Nāgas were actually a cypher for pre-Aryan native Indians. In her eyes, snake worship is to be identified with “grass-root” religion (Cozad 2004, p. 1) and the resistance against Aryan or Brahmin dominance. Consequentially, she looks to identify such pre-Aryan traces in the earliest texts rather than in the Mah ā bh ā rata , starting her book with a chapter on the serpent ( ahi ) Vṛtra, who holds back the waters, until he is slain by the god Indra: “The brahmin redactors render Vṛtra as a demonic character in order to legitimate his defeat at the hand of the heroic Indra. This results in the transference of exclusive control over earthly resources to Indra and those who worship Indra: the brahmin-led Āryans. I would argue that with the narrative demonization, defeat, and subsequent cooptation of Vṛtra’s powers, […] a pre-established contextual framework centralizing a supernatural snake is dismantled in order to construct one centralizing a brahmin-controlled deity.” (Cozad 2004, p. 14). In several passages, C OZAD implies that the “pre-established” system of belief in a snake deity was pre-Aryan 61 In her chapter about this complex of the Ṛ g Veda and the Threat of the Sovereign Snake (ibid., pp. 13–22), I would have expected her to at least once mention the possibility that Vṛtra is not an autochthonous deity, but a concept brought to India alongside Indo-European languages. This is probably the case, as is obvious from the parallel and cognate titles of Indra as “ v ṛ trahan , ‘ v ṛ tra - smasher’, applied to him over fifty times in the Rigveda” (West 2007, p. 246), and of the Old Iranian god V ə r əθ ra γ na, “the slayer of V ə r əθ ra” or the “smiting of resistance” 62 Indra is related to cognate Indo-European weather gods, who fight in a similar manner against dragons or snakes and, as a result of this fight, sometimes also free the waters (ibid., pp. 258 f.). These are strong arguments against the claim that “Indra coopts the powers through which Vṛtra is known—he who ‘scattered about’ the ‘lightning and thunder, rain and hail,’ [ Ṛ gveda 1.32.13: vidyut and tanyatu , miha and hr ā duni ]—to become the supreme god ‘who wields the thunderbolt’ [ Ṛ gveda 1.32.15: vajrab ā hu ]” (Cozad 2004, p. 17). Albeit fascinating, in this case, her “methodological strategy through which we are able to use a conventional religious setting to provide evidence of alternative avenues of religious agency.” (ibid., p. 12) does not work out well. Still, the name and function of Vṛtra not being native to India would not exclude the possibility that “the construction of this supernatural figure predates the incursions 60 Of course, while not killing them directly, the burning down of a forest inhabited by humans would mean taking away their means of production, their self-sufficiency, independence, culture and religion. 61 “Indra is the exclusive property of a particular group of people […], who exclude all but Āryans from their hierarchical social system, thus positioning the indigenous peoples of India and their divine figures outside of this system altogether. The Ṛg Veda thus marks our first encounter with redactors who wish to dismantle a pre-existing contextual framework, one which centralizes the supernatural snake and the desires of indigenous snake worshippers” (Cozad 2004, pp. 17 f.). Unfortunately, the repetition of her own phrasing does not strengthen her argument, which sticks to the simplistic narrative of Āryans invading and suppressing an indigenous culture. 62 The poetic formula “Indra slew the snake ( ahi )” or “Indra slew Vṛtra” occurs throughout the Ṛgveda—but “the specificity of this verbal formula [can be demonstrated] not only in Indic but across most of the related older Indo-European languages over several thousand years in the narration of a specific theme” (Watkins 1995, p. 301)—in Hittite (ibid., pp. 321 f., 448 f.), Greek (ibid., pp. 357 f.), and Old Norse sources (ibid., pp. 414 f.). θ ra” or the “smiting of resistance” 62 Indra is related to cognate Indo-European weather gods, who fight in a similar manner against dragons or snakes and, as a result of this fight, sometimes also free the waters (ibid., pp. 258 f.). These are strong arguments against the claim that “Indra coopts the powers through which Vrtra is known—he who ‘scattered about’ the ‘lightning and thunder, rain and hail,’ [Rgveda 1.32.13: vidyut and tanyatu , miha and hraduni ]—to become the supreme god ‘who wields the thunderbolt’ [Rgveda 1.32.15: vajrabahu ]” ( Cozad 2004 , p. 17) Albeit fascinating, in this case, her “methodological strategy through which we are able to use a conventional religious setting to provide evidence of alternative avenues of religious agency.” (ibid., p. 12) does not work out well. Still, the name and function of Vrtra not being native to India would not exclude the possibility that “the construction of this supernatural figure predates the incursions of the ¯ Aryans and reflects an indigenous tradition of snake worship” (ibid., p. 15). D eeg also points out that the Nagas as aquatic deities are probably older than the so-called Indo- ¯ Aryan populating of North India, although they are also related to the Indo- ¯ Aryan mythology 63 In later chapters, C ozad ’ s interpretation, aiming at the intentions and text acts of the Brahmin redactors, becomes more plausible. In the Mahabharata , for instance, political agendas indeed become visible in the way the Nagas are portrayed: the text makes “use of the tamed, brahminicized Naga, ´Sesa” (ibid., p. 83), of Astika, a “naganized brahmin” (ibid., p. 72) and son of a Nagi and a Brahmin, and of the Naga king Taksaka, “characterized as a malevolent force bent on deceit and destruction” (ibid., p. 64). Furthermore, the narration is densely interspersed with moralist remarks about the superiority of Brahmins, as when Garuda is taught by his mother, Vinata: 61 “Indra is the exclusive property of a particular group of people [ . . ], who exclude all but ¯ Aryans from their hierarchical social system, thus positioning the indigenous peoples of India and their divine figures outside of this system altogether. The Rg Veda thus marks our first encounter with redactors who wish to dismantle a pre-existing contextual framework, one which centralizes the supernatural snake and the desires of indigenous snake worshippers” ( Cozad 2004 , pp. 17 f.) Unfortunately, the repetition of her own phrasing does not strengthen her argument, which sticks to the simplistic narrative of ¯ Aryans invading and suppressing an indigenous culture 62 The poetic formula “Indra slew the snake ( ahi )” or “Indra slew Vrtra” occurs throughout the Rgveda—but “the specificity of this verbal formula [can be demonstrated] not only in Indic but across most of the related older Indo-European languages over several thousand years in the narration of a specific theme” ( Watkins 1995 , p. 301)—in Hittite (ibid., pp. 321 f., 448 f.), Greek (ibid., pp. 357 f.), and Old Norse sources (ibid., pp. 414 f.) 63 “Nagas sind [ . . ] schlangenartige Wesen, die [ . . ] wahrscheinlich vor die sogenannte indoarische Besiedelung Nordindiens zurückreichen, aber auch Querverbindungen zu der indoarischen Mythologie aufweisen” ( Deeg 2008 , p. 92).

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Quite, Roots, Point, Lot, Gone, Constant, Positive, Burns]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 21 of 26 “A brahmin angered is a fire, a sun, a poison, a sword [ . . ]. If a man has gone down your throat like a swallowed fishhook and burns like a coal, then, my son, you will know that he is an eminent brahmin!” ( Mahabharata 1.24.3–6, transl van Buitenen 1973 , p. 81) At this point, I agree with C ozad ’ s interpretation. Throughout the textual history of Hindu India, she highlights the animal nature of Nagas, although their existence surpasses the biological capacities and bodily features attributed to snakes: “Snakes, as ubiquitous, powerful denizens of the earth’s surface provide constant and easy access to anyone who might wish to approach them as objects of religious devotion. Snake worship can thus be seen as a form of religiosity created and maintained by those most often disenfranchised by orthodox religion, for example, women” ( Cozad 2004 , p. 3). “The primary ritual activities associated with snake worship obviate the necessity of a brahmin o ffi ciant” (ibid., p. 11) As for the Nagas as proponents of a grass-roots religion, empowering women and farmers against caste hierarchy and patriarchy, C ozad makes her sympathy towards them quite clear. Thereby, she seemingly overlooks the fact that actual snake worshippers do not necessarily attribute positive character traits to their animalistic deities. This becomes clear from A lloco ’ s ethnographic work in Tamilnadu (cf Alloco 2013 , 2014 ), from the stories about the Bengali serpent goddess Mansa, as well as from my own fieldwork in the Central Himalaya. The threat posed to humans both by Nagas and by living cobras—where they are not altogether held to be the same—often makes the relationship between Nagas to humans much less harmonious than C ozad portrays it While neglected in C ozad ’ s argumentation, the non-harmonious relations between humans and Nagas only supports her premise regarding the likeness and close relatedness of Nagas to serpents. I have demonstrated the evidence for such a perspective throughout the contexts examined in this article, most notably in modern film productions 5. Discussion Myths have manifold meanings—as much as they have to say about history, the human body, nature, the psyche or social life, they also reveal about animals as members of society and of the environment. Having analyzed Nagas as protagonists in di ff erent religious, spatial and temporal contexts, I conclude that they indeed all have a lot in common. They are always more than just snakes, but never without any serpentine features, regarding both their bodies and their relationship to humans This relationship is often tense and full of conflict, mutual cruelty and cycles of revenge.

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Atra, Mirror, Read, Pain, Cana, Heaven, Feel, Battle, Adu, Person, Kin, Moral, Hari, Michaels, Amil, Aran, Harm, Younger, Dina]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 22 of 26 I opened this article by showing that worshipping (divine) cobras can manifest itself in acts of cruelty towards (animal) cobras. The ethnographies from T amil N adu in South India and from U ttarakhand in the Central Himalaya (cf. Section 2 ) provide examples for Nagas doing harm ( dos ) to their human devotees ( bhakt ), even though they love them as kin. Cruelty against Nagas, be they animals, spirits or humans, also occurs in the classical texts Mahabharata 1.214–225 has Krsna and other heroes burn down a whole forest, without letting anyone escape. Even if the massacred Nagas are not human (as in the interpretation of this episode by Iravati Karve), but animals or imaginary beings, they are still portrayed as beings able to feel and communicate terror and pain, as they are hunted together with (other) animals, as “herds of creatures cried out wretchedly, elephants screamed, and deer and birds [ . . ]. Some who came by narrow paths collapsed there; and Hari slew the Raksasas, Danavas, and Nagas with his discus” ( Mahabharata 1.219.28–30) 64 Although the Mahabharata does not condemn this slaughter, in Hinduism and, much more so, in many “indigenous” traditions of India, many animals and plants are regarded, and often worshipped, as people (cf Haberman 2013 ). Nagas are sometimes cobras, sometimes people, sometimes clouds or mountain lakes, and potentially all at once. Deities are polyvalent; in my fieldwork I met villagers who talk about Naini Devi as though she was a person—and indeed, she has a mythology in which she acts just like a human child—while others denied her any personhood, conceiving of her as an unintentional force ( sakti ) within the mountains and everywhere. If such a current concept of polyvalent divinity can be projected onto historical Hindu deities 65 , the ethnographic examples can help us to understand the Nagas of earlier contexts better, be they blurred, semi-moral beings of the Mahabharata or the embodied spirits of mountain lakes and natural forces incorporated into Buddhism. In the Buddhist story behind the Nagananda play (cf. Section 3.3 ), the Nagas and the bird Garuda are neither animals nor humans, but symbols of conflicting forces in nature, of heaven and earth. This opposition might or might not mirror concepts about human “inner nature”—in any case, these beings do symbolize the outer nature, representing all the species of their respective realm. Thus, they are seldom depicted naturalistically, as zoological animals, but never without some animal features. The mythological imagination both draws from observations of the environment and from the abstracting faculty of language, and, for instance, brings together snakes and elephants (both naga ) into one category, as food of Garuda ( Dave 1985 , p. 201) 66 The Nagananda ends with Garuda and the Nagas becoming friends of the Buddha to be Hindu myths can likewise be read as stories of friendship with animals, when ´Sesa, the firstborn of the Nagas, decides to serve Visnu (vgl Mahabharata 1.32), or when ´Siva takes ´Sesa’s younger brother Vasuki as a garland. Krsna, on the other hand, first defeats the serpent Kaliya in battle, dances on his head and only then becomes friends with him (Figure 7 ). 64 (Transl van Buitenen 1973 , p. 422), from Sanskrit bh utasam . ghasahasras ca dinas cakrur mahasvanam / ruruvur v¯aran.as caiva tathaiva mrgapaksinah // 28 // [ . . ] // ekayanagata ye ‘pi nispatanty atra ke cana / raksasan danavan nagañ jaghne cakrena tan harih // 30 // 65 This is suggested by Michaels ( 1998 , p. 206 f.), according to whom Hindu deities throughout the epochs are potentially multiform, potentially featureless forces and potentially embodied 66 For Garuda feeding on an elephant, cf Mahabharata 25.10–26.26.

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Connect, Left, Canon, Frazer, Holding, Queens, Lotus, Web, Nagat, Ine, Flower, Eiko, James, Bali]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 23 of 26 Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 23 of 26 ( a ) ( b ) Figure 7. Kṛṣṇa dances on the subdued Nāga king Kāliya, who had polluted the Yamunā River with his poison. Now, as the footmark of Kṛṣṇa protects him, Kāliyā and his queens are safe from Garuḍa, who, as a devotee of Viṣṇu, also venerates his avat ā r Kṛṣṇa. ( a ) Metal figure given by Rudolf Otto in 1927 to Marburg Museum of Religions (photo by Eiko Wösner, acc.nr. Lp 139); ( b ) Figure from Bali, purchased 1959 for the Marburg Museum of Religion in Yogyakarta. In Indonesia, Nāgas are depicted as being dragon-like, while Kṛṣṇa/Viṣṇu can be identified by his four arms, holding a discus and lotus flower. Striking are the similarities in the posture of the legs and the gesture of the left hand, holding the serpent/dragon’s tail (photo by Eiko Wösner, acc.nr. Ar 081). If we take the Nāgas as symbols, who is domesticated, subdued or pacified here? Are they forces, dangers and resources of “nature” in general, or do they represent a whole species in one person? Are they something uncontrollable “within us”, or do they represent an older religion, maybe of older, subdued ethnicities? And what about the little Nāgas, the living house snakes fed with milk in India and elsewhere, sometimes seen as “ancestors come to life” (James G. Frazer, cited in Ermacora 2017, p. 4)? Whatever they might stand for, in the first place, they are still animals, seen as animals and as protectors from other animals. In folk religion, some Nāg women act as intermediaries between human and serpent people (Figure 8). In some sense, Nāgas, mythical beings and symbols of animality, are serpents and thus “animals”, as quoted from the Pali Canon in Section 3.2: tiracch ā nagat ā , “going horizontally, not erect”. Where they are portrayed as humans, they portray our animal nature, as well as the human condition of being treated “like animals”. As figures in movies, literature and other myths, they are imagined to be intermediate between humans, animals and deities. At first glance, in the contemporary ritual embodiment of Naiṇī Devī , she does not look or behave differently from other deities. However, the mythical storytelling and the singing of songs highlight her as being a Nāg, her animal nature and her embeddedness within the web of Pan-Indian and ancient Nāga mythology. Thus, she shares with other Hindu and Buddhist Nāgas the capacity to connect different beings without a common language, even living in different worlds. Like other religious symbols and protagonists, Nāginīs and Nāgas help to make ineffable things effable and to speak with nonhuman beings. Figure 7. Krsna dances on the subdued Naga king Kaliya, who had polluted the Yamuna River with his poison. Now, as the footmark of Krsna protects him, Kaliya and his queens are safe from Garuda, who, as a devotee of Visnu, also venerates his avatar Krsna. ( a ) Metal figure given by Rudolf Otto in 1927 to Marburg Museum of Religions (photo by Eiko Wösner, acc.nr. Lp 139); ( b ) Figure from Bali, purchased 1959 for the Marburg Museum of Religion in Yogyakarta. In Indonesia, Nagas are depicted as being dragon-like, while Krsna / Visnu can be identified by his four arms, holding a discus and lotus flower. Striking are the similarities in the posture of the legs and the gesture of the left hand, holding the serpent / dragon’s tail (photo by Eiko Wösner, acc.nr. Ar 081) If we take the Nagas as symbols, who is domesticated, subdued or pacified here? Are they forces, dangers and resources of “nature” in general, or do they represent a whole species in one person? Are they something uncontrollable “within us”, or do they represent an older religion, maybe of older, subdued ethnicities? And what about the little Nagas, the living house snakes fed with milk in India and elsewhere, sometimes seen as “ancestors come to life” ( Ermacora 2017 , p. 4)? Whatever they might stand for, in the first place, they are still animals, seen as animals and as protectors from other animals. In folk religion, some Nag women act as intermediaries between human and serpent people (Figure 8 ). In some sense, Nagas, mythical beings and symbols of animality, are serpents and thus “animals”, as quoted from the Pali Canon in Section 3.2 : tiracchanagata , “going horizontally, not erect”. Where they are portrayed as humans, they portray our animal nature, as well as the human condition of being treated “like animals”. As figures in movies, literature and other myths, they are imagined to be intermediate between humans, animals and deities. At first glance, in the contemporary ritual embodiment of Naini Devi, she does not look or behave di ff erently from other deities. However, the mythical storytelling and the singing of songs highlight her as being a Nag, her animal nature and her embeddedness within the web of Pan-Indian and ancient Naga mythology. Thus, she shares with other Hindu and Buddhist Nagas the capacity to connect di ff erent beings without a common language, even living in di ff erent worlds. Like other religious symbols and protagonists, Naginis and Nagas help to make ine ff able things e ff able and to speak with nonhuman beings.

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Willem, Amy, Deal, Wood, York, Paine, Edith, Mumbai, Ward, London, Dalal, Maiden, Stare, Franke, Fan, Nara, Susanne, Welcome, Age, Lowell, Eva, Andreas, Routledge, Fear, Taylor, Dark, Neil, Westland, Kanya, Kany, Anne, Hemming, Yan, Narayan, Artist]

Religions 2019 , 10 , 454 24 of 26 Religions 2019 , 10 , x FOR PEER REVIEW 24 of 26 ( a ) ( b ) Figure 8. Two N ā g-kany ās , “Nāga-maidens”, conversing with or warding off snakes with ritual items; wood-printed and painted as votive or protective images (artist: Pāine Thegana Nārā yan, Kathmandu 1994; both in the Marburg Museum of Religions): ( a ) Nāg-Kanyā holding a flower and a book (photo by Anne Beutter, acc.nr. B-Kp 155 011); ( b ) N ā g-Kany ā holding a fan and a mirror, possibly to ward off the evil eye or the hypnotic stare of snakes. The Sanskrit verse names five ancient sages, “Agastya, Pulasta, Vaiśampāyana, Sumantu and Jaimini, the five who resist the thunderbolt” 67 (photo by Anne Beutter, acc.nr. B-Kp 155 010). Funding: This research received no external funding. Acknowledgments: I am obliged to Edith Franke and Susanne Rodemeier, my colleagues from the Religionskundliche Sammlung in Marburg 68 , for permission to use photographs of objects from this Museum of Religion. Heike Luu and Georg Dörr, who took most of these photographs, helped me a great deal ordering my thoughts. I am grateful to Andreas Hemming for proof-reading the text. Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest. References (Alloco 2013) Alloco, Amy. 2013. Fear, Reverence and Ambivalence. Divine Snakes in Contemporary South India. Religions of South Asia 7: 230–48. (Alloco 2014) Alloco, Amy. 2014. Snakes in the Dark Age. Human Action, Karmic Retribution, and the Possibilities for Hindu Animal Ethics. In Asian Perspectives on Animal Ethics. Rethinking the Nonhuman . Edited by Neil Dalal and Chloë Taylor. London and New York: Routledge. (Amish 2008) Amish. 2008. The Immortals of Meluha. Shiva Trilogy 1 . Chennai: Westland Publ. (Amish 2011) Amish. 2011. The Secret of the Nagas. Shiva Trilogy 2. Chennai: Westland Publ. (Bloss 1973) Bloss, Lowell. 1973. The Buddha and the Nāga. A Study in Buddhist Folk Religiosity. History of Religions 13: 36–53. (Bollée 2008) Bollée, Willem. 2008. P ā r ś vacaritram. The Life of P ā r ś va . Mumbai: Hindi Granth Karyalay. 67 Agastyaśca pulastaśca Vaiśampāyana eva ca / Sumantur Jaiminiś caiva pañcaite vajra-vārakāḥ //. Other images from the same artist contain a longer text, starting with the same verse and explaining that whoever says aloud the names of these sages is safe from fire caused by lightning. Probably with a similar purpose, a third verse adds the list of “the eight praised Nāgas Ananta, Vāsuki, Padma, Mahāpadma, Takṣaka, Kulīra, Karkaṭa and Śankha” (ananto vāsukiḥ padmo mahāpadmaś ca takṣakaḥ / kulīraḥ karkaṭaḥ śaṅkhaś cāṣṭ au nāgāḥ prarkīrtitāḥ ). Some of these names have occurred in this article. 68 https://www.uni-marburg.de/relsamm/welcome?setlanguage=en. Figure 8. Two Nag-kanya s, “Naga-maidens”, conversing with or warding o ff snakes with ritual items; wood-printed and painted as votive or protective images (artist: Paine Thegana Narayan, Kathmandu 1994; both in the Marburg Museum of Religions): ( a ) Nag-Kanya holding a flower and a book (photo by Anne Beutter, acc.nr. B-Kp 155 011); ( b ) Nag-Kanya holding a fan and a mirror, possibly to ward o ff the evil eye or the hypnotic stare of snakes. The Sanskrit verse names five ancient sages, “Agastya, Pulasta, Vaisampayana, Sumantu and Jaimini, the five who resist the thunderbolt” 67 (photo by Anne Beutter, acc.nr. B-Kp 155 010) Funding: This research received no external funding Acknowledgments: I am obliged to Edith Franke and Susanne Rodemeier, my colleagues from the Religionskundliche Sammlung in Marburg 68 , for permission to use photographs of objects from this Museum of Religion. Heike Luu and Georg Dörr, who took most of these photographs, helped me a great deal ordering my thoughts. I am grateful to Andreas Hemming for proof-reading the text Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest References Alloco, Amy. 2013. Fear, Reverence and Ambivalence. Divine Snakes in Contemporary South India Religions of South Asia 7: 230–48. [ CrossRef ] Alloco, Amy. 2014. Snakes in the Dark Age. Human Action, Karmic Retribution, and the Possibilities for Hindu Animal Ethics. In Asian Perspectives on Animal Ethics. Rethinking the Nonhuman . Edited by Neil Dalal and Chloë Taylor. London and New York: Routledge Amish. 2008 The Immortals of Meluha. Shiva Trilogy 1 . Chennai: Westland Publ Amish. 2011 The Secret of the Nagas. Shiva Trilogy 2 . Chennai: Westland Publ Bloss, Lowell. 1973. The Buddha and the Naga. A Study in Buddhist Folk Religiosity History of Religions 13: 36–53 [ CrossRef ] 67 Agastyasca pulastasca Vaisampayana eva ca / Sumantur Jaiminis caiva pañcaite vajra-varakah // .Other images from the same artist contain a longer text, starting with the same verse and explaining that whoever says aloud the names of these sages is safe from fire caused by lightning. Probably with a similar purpose, a third verse adds the list of “the eight praised Nagas Ananta, Vasuki, Padma, Mahapadma, Taksaka, Kulira, Karkata and ´Sankha” (ananto vasukih. padmo mahapadmas ca taksakah / kulirah. karkatah. sa ˙nkhas castau nagah. prarkirtitah.). Some of these names have occurred in this article 68 https: // www.uni-marburg.de / relsamm / welcome?setlanguage = en .

[Find the meaning and references behind the names: Davies, Element, Hansa, Sacra, Harsha, Kali, Marinus, Cambridge, Vacek, Sto, David, Christ, Damodar, Charles, Roth, Band, Kaiser, Doris, Bon, Hamsa, Dagmar, Johannes, Htm, Motilal, Donald, Deshmukh, Barbara, Ainslie, Bud, Berlin, Kuh, Drama, Davide, Lit, Tokyo, Jaroslav, Liri, Salvation, Chand, Steiner, Vinaya, Robert, Aurora, Winter, Guignard, Suckling, Constable, Axel, Wilhelm, Tor, Decker, Palmer, Franz, Mbh, Khi, Loved, Cow, Frederick, Oxford, Ditte, Amsterdam, Prakashan, Giulia, Mirko, Rome, Manfred, Michael, Florence]

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