is with grateful acknowledgment that I dedicate this volume to my friend and college rooms that I dedicate that the University of Amsterdam, was the first to introduce me to a knowledge of the mysterious Naga world as revealed in the archaic prose of the Panushyaparvan.
In the summer of the year 1901 a visit to the Kuļu valley brought me face to face with people who still pay reverence to those very serpent-demons known from early Indian literature. In the course of my subsequent wanderings through the Western Himalayas, which in their remote valleys have preserved so many ancient beliefs and customs, I had ample opportunity for collecting information regarding the worship of the Nagas, as it survives up to the present day.
Other nations have known or still practise this form of animal worship. But it would be difficult to quote another instance in which it takes such a prominent place in literature folk-lore, and art, as it does in India. Nor would it be possible to name another country where the development of this cult can be studied during a period which may be estimated at no less than three millennia. During so vast a space of time the doified serpents have haunted the imagination of the people of Hind. But even more astonishing is the endless variety of aspect under which the Nagas appear in Indian literature and art We meet, on the one hand, with the primitive type of the reptile endowed with the magio properties which we are wont to associate with the dragon of Western fable. On the other hand, the Niga frequently has the character of a water-spirit. Again, he may be able to assume any form he chooses, and commonly appears in human shape. In Brahmanical legend he may become a pious ascetic, in Buddhist lore he may even develop into a self-denying saint Very often these various types appear strangely blended.
In the present volume it has been my object to collect the legends relating to the Nigas which are found in the Brahmanical and Buddhist literature of India We do not pretend that in that gigantic body of literary tradition there may not be a Naga story which has escaped our notice. The three chief repositories of serpent-lore the Mahabharata, the Jataka Book, and the Rajatarangini-have, at least, been fully utalized. But for the rest it is questionable whether much would have been gained by aiming at completeness. The stories here presented will certainly suffice to show the Nagas in that great variety of aspect to which reference has been made.
As the story-tellers of ancient India wore fond of indulging in repetition and detail, it appeared often unavoidable to curtail the narrative considerably In doing so it has been our endeavour to retain something of the exotic flavour of the Eastern tale, and, in particular, to preserve any such features as may be of interest for our present subject While freely utilizing existing translations we have not reframed from making such alterations as seemed to be called for either for the sake of plulological necuracy or on account of the general style of the book The sculptures reproduced in our plates have been partly selected for their asthetic or archeological interest, partly because they illustrate the legends contained in the text.
My obligations for assistance rendored in various ways are numerous For the supply of photographs to illustrate my book, 1 am much indebted to Sir John Marshall, Kt, C.LE, M.A., Latt D., Director-General of Archmology in India, and to the various officers of his Department; to Sir Aurel Stein, Kt., CIR, Ph.D.: to Mr. Ramiprüd Chanda, M.A., Officer in charge of the Archrological Section, Imperial Museum, Caloutta; to the Curators of the Provincial Museums at Lahore and Lareknow; to Mr. R. Narasimhachar, late Director of Archrological Researches, Mysore Slate; to Mr. F. D. K. Bosch, PhD, Director of the Arclurological Survey of Netherlands-India; to M. Louis Finot, Directeur de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient, Hanoi; to Mr. C. Stanley Clarke, Curator Indian Section, Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington; to Mr. T. A. Joyce, of the British Museum, and to M Delaporte, Conservateur, Musée du Trocadéro, Paris.
MONG the many strange tales which the companions of the great Macedonian conqueror brought home from the Land of the Five Rivers, those relating to serpents of gigantic size were not the least wonderful. Nearchos, the admiral of Alexander, according to Strabo, expresses his surprise at the multitude and malignancy of the tribe of reptiles. "They retreat from the plains to the villages which do not disappear under water at the time of the inundations, and fill the houses. On this account, the people zause their beds to a great height from the ground, and are sometimes compelled to abandon their homes, through the presence of these pests in overwhelming numbers In fact, were it not that a great proportion of the tribe suffered destruction by the waters, the country would be reduced to a desert. The minute size of some and the immense sine of others are sources of danger, the former because it is difficult to guard against their attacks, the latter by reason of their strength, for snakos are to be seen of sixteen oubita in length."
Onesikratos, whom Strabo somewhat unfairly calls "the master fabulist as well as the master pilot of Alexander", says that the king of Abhisara (the hill tract south-west of Kashmir), as the envoys who came from him related, kept two serpents, one of which was 80 and the other 140 cubits in length. Other Greek writers mentioned that the natives used to hunt serpents among the Emodos mountains and rear them in caves.
Elian, too, in his account of India refers to "the bane of snakes". He also speaks of the herbs which serve as antidotes against the bite of any snake and refers to the curious belief that a snake, if it kills a man, cannot creep into its underground home, "the earth refusing to receive it, and casting it out from her household, banishing it, so to speak, from her bosom."
"When Alexander was assaulting some of the cities in India," the same author relates, "and capturing others, he found in many of them, besides other animals, a snake which the Indians, regarding as sacred, kept in a cave and worshipped with much devotion. The Indians accordingly with every kind of entreaty implored Alexander to let no one molest the animal, and he consented to this. Now when the army was marching past the cave, the snake heard the sound that arose (that kind of animal being very sharp both of hearing and sight), and hissed so loud and emitted such gusts of rage that every one was terrified and quite confounded.
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