DIVINEINFORMATION PART 43 There are 1528 words in this posting counted bythe computer. Approximately 152sentences
Respectedfriends, While going through one of my external memorydevice, I came across some good information storedfrom websites. I thought of sharing interesting ones from them as aseries. In part 42, I am starting with 150TH item in this posting. Kindly note the series is a compilation. Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan 27-6-21 150 Snake Women ofIndia BeforeBuddhism, before Hinduism, before the arrival of the Vedic Aryans into Indiaand their sacred texts and epic poems (the Vedas, Upanishads, the Mahabharata),back into the thirdmillennium B.C., there was snake worship in the Indus valley. And so itcontinues, thousands of years later, in modern India today,tenaciously adapting to each new religion so that it continues to play a partin the spiritual life of many Indian peoples. It may be that humans havealways worshipped the snake, perhaps always will. Snakes feature in the mythsand legends of peoples across the globe. The Greeks had their Okeanos, the ocean serpent,biting its own tail; the Norwegians had their Cosmic Serpent, gnawing at theroots of the world tree; the Jews had their snake in the Garden of Eden,bringing knowledge to mankind. But why this obsession with snakes? Well, in many ways, it's a no-brainer. Snakes can kill you, if youaren't too careful. People who figured that out, survived. We are storytelling animals, andstories were made to explain the relationship of man to snakes. Thosewho learned the stories survived, and passed them on. Evolutionary biologistEdward O. Wilson suggests that this sort of cultural evolution occurs alongwith our biological evolution, and that fascination with snakes becamegenetically hard-wired, so to speak, in all of us over time. Fear and veneration of snakes is in ourgenes --though how our snake-lore is expressed is different depending on the culture wewere raised in. Andwhere else but India would snake-lore be expressed so thoroughly and for solong, ensconed at the root of Hinduism and in the sacred sutras of Buddhism,and even as objects of veneration in their own right? India is home of some of thedeadliest snakes on the planet: the viper, the cobra, the king cobra. Thousandsof people die of snakebites in India every year. This explains why snakeworshipping, though not as common as it once was, still is practiced in somerural areas of the subcontinent, most especially in Southern India. 151 Serpent Kings Theword Naga comes from the Sanskrit, meaning "serpent." Naga can also mean"cobra." But the term also has come to refer to a group ofserpent deities and demi-humans, which is what concerns us most, here. The most powerful Nagas are at the veryroot of Hindu Mythology, in the Vedas and the Puranas,which when at last passing out of the Vedic oral tradition and into writtentexts, had no doubt been well influenced by the snake worshipping tales of theconquered Harappan peoples of the Indus Valley (who are also sometimes referredto as Nagas) with whom they lived for hundreds of years. The Nagas have three kings.The first and greatest is Sheshnaga, born of the residue left over aftercreation, with 1,000 heads formed into a giant hood. Earth is said to rest on his hood, andhis venom endsall of creation at the end of each great cycle of life. Vishnuuses him as a couch. The second is Vasuki, who plays animportant role in the Hindu cosmogenic tale of the "Churning of the sea ofmilk." Itwas at a time when the Gods were weak, and the Demons strong. The Gods werebeing driven out of their heavens. But Lord Visnu suggested a plan -- bychurning the cosmic sea of milk, they could dredge up the elixir or immortalityfrom the bottom, and so gain the strength to take back their heavens and defeatthe demons. But to churnthe cosmic sea was too much for just the Gods alone to do, so a truce wascalled and the demons assisted, hoping to gain the elixir for themselves. So they went about making the biggest milk-churn the world has everknown, using Mount Mandara as the churn/pivot, and the Serpent King Vasuki asthe rope. They wound Vasuki around the Mount, and then, the Godsgrabbing the tail and the demons grabbing his seven heads, proceeded to pullthe great serpent back and forth, turning the mountain and churning the ocean. Needlessto say, the whole thing was making Vasuki a bit nauseus, and he kept belchingfire into the demons faces, while the Gods had partly cloudy skies and a nice breeze on theirend. Finally Vasuki couldn't take it anymore, and vomited up a great poisonous cloud, threatening to kill everythingand everyone, gods and demons included. But Shiva popped down and swallowed thepoison,saving the world, and turning his throat blue at the same time. Eventually the Gods get theirelixir, trick the demons out of theirs, and Vasuki heads out, waiting for thenext time the Gods decide to use him for tug-of-war. The third Naga King isTaksaka, who rather than having cosmic importance, could really be consideredmore of the tribal chieftain. His story kicks off the epic Mahabharat.A powerful king, out hunting, meets an ascetic in the woods. He speaks to thewise man but the ascetic makes no response. Angered, the King kills a snake and drapes it over theyogi's neck, who is unmoved. When the ascetic's son sees what hashappened, he curses the King to die, and calls upon Taksaka, the Naga King, totake revenge. The yogi is not happy about the curse, and sends a disciple towarn the King. ButTaksaka is far to clever. He sends some Nagas, disguised as hermits, to theKing, and they offer him fruit. The King takes the fruit, from which Taksaka, disguised as an insect,emerges. He stings the King, who is killed instantly. Andso, it is his son's turn to take revenge. He vows vengeance on Taksaka, and bysummoning a priest who uses a powerful spell, a sacrd fire is created whichconsumes the snakes one by one. The young man is intent on ridding the world ofsnakes once and for all, butjust as Taksaka himself is about to be consumed by fire, a great sageintervenes and spares his life. Afterthis, the Nagas retreat to the underworld, promising to bit only the trulyevil, or those destined to die prematurely anyway. 152 Serpent Maidens andMothers TheNaga, a race of semi-divine snake people who inhabit the Naga-lokaunderworld with Taksaka as their King, have inspired and continue to inspirelegends and stories. But it is especially thewomen of this race, the Nagin, who have captured the imagination themost. These serpent princesses aresaid to be strikingly beautiful, but with the power to transform at will, to acobra, or to a half-snake, half-human figure. A precious gem is embedded intheir skulls which give them magical powers. Thesebeautiful snake women are, apparently, the marrying kind. Arjun, hero of the Mahabharat,takes as one of his wives the Nag Princess Ulupi. Ina tale familiar to Chinese and Japanese myth, though with different principalcharacters, Ulupi spies Arjundoing his religious practices, falls in love, and abducts him to live in herunderwater kingdom. Hemarries her, and lives there for three years, before she allows him to leave and continue his journey,providing him protection from all underwater creatures. Outof legend and into claims of historic authenticity, it is interesting thatseveral royal families in India claim to have Nagi in their family tree. TheRoyalty of Manipur, in North Eastern India, traces their lineage back to 33 AD,beginning with a union between a serpent princess and a human. InSouthern India, the Pallavas does the same. There are all kinds of legends about snake maidens, downby the river, whofall in love with and marry human men who demonstrate some act of kindness. Oneof the best known legends of the Nagi is about a serpent mother, not a maiden,and in snake form, not in human. Afarmer, while tilling his field, manages to kill a nest full of young serpents.The mother, on her return, sees the dead snakes and becomes furious. She bites the farmer, his wife,and their children while they are sleeping, killing them all. Thefarmers eldest daughter, already married and living out of town, takes sometime to get to. When the snake mother arrives, she catches the daughter in themiddle of worshipping an image of a snake, asking for forgiveness for mistakesmade by her family. Thismakes the mother snake feel like a complete asp, and so she gives the daughtersome nectar to bring her family back to life, and leaves in peace. I will continue in next posting -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1930859727.3371922.1624767086944%40mail.yahoo.com.
