Snakes have a bad name in Semitic mythology because the devil, in the guise of a serpent, tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, although it was scarcely the fault of actual serpents that their form came in handy for lurking about in trees.
However, Nagas or snakes are highly respected in the Indic culture of South and Southeast Asia, as wise and powerful beings who serve the greatest gods. This fortnight marks two major Nagacentred Buddhist festivals out East. Bang Fai Phaya Nak (Naga Fireball Festival) took place on October 7 in Nong Khai city, Thailand. This festival features a mysterious event where glowing fireballs rise from the Mekong River, which folklore attributes to the Naga spirits in the water. Coming up, Boun Lai Heua Fai on October 18 in Laos is a festival to honour the Nagas and to ask for good luck.
Nagas are considered affectionate, generous, and generally supportive of human beings, but they also need to be tiptoed around carefully because they can be moody and sensitive. They are also said to be most finicky about polite behaviour. In the old days, it was considered good training in the ways of the world to be taught how to address snakes properly in their shrines, which are commonly found in temples.
Here, an old story from the Panchatantra comes to mind about human beings and snakes. A poor farmer named Haridatt lay down one afternoon for a nap in the shade of a tree by his field. When he awoke, he saw a snake gliding out of an anthill nearby. Saluting the Nag Devta as the guardian of his fields from rats and mice, he left a bowl of milk for it before going home. The next day, he was amazed to see a gold coin left in the milk bowl.
This became a pattern and prevailed for many days. Haridatt grew very prosperous and built himself a fine, new homestead with rafters of the best teak and many outlying barns and sheds. He bought the adjoining fields of his neighbours, dug new wells, had water channels made, and, naturally, being an Indian farmer, bought a whole herd of fine milch cows. He also bought two strong buffaloes to turn the oil press he built for the village. He began to take an interest in pilgrimage and donated freely to the post-monsoon restoration of the local temple. On his own initiative, he built a dharmashala or rest house for travellers.
To explain his sudden wealth, he spread a clever, imaginary tale about being blessed by an itinerant holy man, and being led after that through a dream to a cache of gold buried under a tree well off the king’s highway.
The villagers bought the story. They began to look up to Haridatt, and so did the local feudal lord, who invited him to his daughter’s wedding. Whenever the king’s revenue officer came to collect tax from the village, he stayed at Haridatt’s house, and told anyone who would listen that there was no better host in a radius of a hundred kos. Haridatt was now so well set up that there was not a single comfort lacking in his life. He was healthy, wealthy, and extremely happy. He had enough to house, feed, clothe, and marry off the next seven generations of his family. His wife had believed his story completely, and by the time his children grew older, they were so used to prosperity that they never thought to ask how their father had grown so rich. Haridatt had taken to wearing a solid gold bracelet with a snake etched on it, which he drolly referred to as his lucky charm. Even the village priest, normally the single window for such magicking, was content to smile indulgently.
However, one time when Haridatt needed to travel to a place nearby for a couple of days, he found that he grudged having to miss even one day’s yield of a gold coin. He had never minded before because the snake’s excellent manners made it repay every bowl of milk, but this time he minded it very much, unaware that the poison of greed had contaminated his mind.
Without going into details, he told his eldest son to take a bowl of milk to the snake that lived by the anthill. The next morning, when the son saw the gold coin, he thought, “There must be so many gold coins under this spot. I will kill the snake tomorrow and take them all.” The next day, when he saw the snake emerging, he aimed a blow at its head with his stout bamboo lathi.
The snake recoiled in pain and bit the young man, who died right there, writhing in agony. The villagers found him and promptly cremated him as was the custom. When Haridatt came home to this horrible news, he grieved bitterly for his son. But so deep was his addiction to the gold coins that he went back the next day to the anthill with a bowl of milk as usual, and praised the snake as his benefactor.
The snake came out and surveyed Haridatt with contempt. “I despise your greed,” it said. “Your son struck my head and I bit him in rage. How can I forget the blow, or you, his death?”
Scrupulously correct to the end, it let fall a large diamond in return for the bowl of milk, and vanished forever, leaving Haridatt wholly stricken.
Renuka Narayanan | FAITHLINE | Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
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