Indian Serpent-Lore, or the Nagas in Hindu Legend and Art

it was not seen [in its entirety], but only its head projected from the cave. Its eyes, moreover, are reported to have been as large as a great, round Macedonian shield."

Apart from the exaggerated size attributed to certain Indian snakes (in which matter the Greeks, perhaps, relied too much on their Indian informants), these accounts may on the whole be accepted as based on fact. For our present purpose, the last passage quoted from Ælian is of special interest, as it testifies to the existence of real serpent worship—the cult of the live animal—in the Punjab original: Panjāb during the fourth century B.C. Now, while genuine serpent worship ophiolatry: the worship of snakes prevails up to the present day in Western and Southern India, it is found in Northern India only in the form of certain survivals which will be discussed in our concluding chapter. The name under which the snakes are still worshipped in India is the same by which we find the deified serpent regularly designated in ancient literature: the Sanskrit nāga, which has become the modern nāg.

Regarding the origin and significance of Naga worship, there exists a very marked diversity of opinion. The views expressed by James Fergusson in his large book, Tree and Serpent Worship (1868, 2nd ed. 1873), have often been quoted and have, no doubt, exercised considerable influence; however, they will hardly find any supporters among truly competent scholars of the present generation. According to him, the Nagas were not originally serpents but serpent-worshippers—an aboriginal race of "Turanian" stock an obsolete 19th-century term used to describe non-Aryan ethnic groups, usually from Central Asia inhabiting Northern India, who were conquered by the warlike Aryans. Fergusson positively declares that neither the Aryans nor the Dravidians were serpent-worshippers, and, in order to maintain his thesis, he even asserts that "any traces of serpent-worship that may be found in the Vedas or earlier writings of the Aryans must either be later additions original: interpolations or concessions to the superstitions of the subject races." Buddhism, which replaced serpent-worship, he describes as "little more than a revival of the coarser superstitions of the aboriginal races." Apart from these strange and baseless theories, Fergusson’s book contains a fair amount of useful information about serpent worship, as practiced not only by the Indians but also among other nations of antiquity.

The distinguished German Indologist a scholar of Indian history, culture, and languages, the late Professor Hermann Oldenberg, considers the Nagas to belong to that class of demonic beings which is best represented by werewolves. They appear, indeed, often in human shape, as is also the case with werewolves, tiger-men, and swan-maidens. "We cannot conclude our account of the mythic animal world," Oldenberg says,¹ "without considering the relations which are believed to exist between animal and human existence. The conception of a substantial unity..."

¹ H. Oldenberg, The Religion of the Veda original: Die Religion des Veda, 2nd ed. (1917), p. 81. The passage alluded to by Oldenberg occurs in the Pali canon of the Buddhist scriptures; it is the story of the snake that wished to become a monk. It will be found in our Chapter II, below, pp. 110–111.