Creature of the Week: Nāga
You may know it from: DnD, Magic
Dear Reader,
As promised last time, I have delivered you a snake. I say a snake, but the Nāga is much more complex. Nāgas are most commonly snake/elephant/human hybrids (akin to a Makara) but in Buddhism they are entirely human. Not only that, but they may have a varying number of heads.
Nāgas have control of water and are closely associated with rivers. Some explanations of floods are that they are punishment by the Nāgas. According to Phan Anh Tuy, “belief in a water entity found its way in people’s consciousness to help them face the unexplained phenomenon when nature strikes.” Thanks to their control of water, Nāga came to symbolize many things, including fertility. A Nāga named Ananta helped Vishnu create the world.
They are also associated with royalty, since notably floods would occur when anyone including kings were unrighteous. Nāga would also assume a role in constructing cities and providing wealth to kings. They also have their own political hierarchy with kings, referred to as Nāgaraja’s watching over consorts. In the association with rivers, the Nāga assumed a spiritual value. In one historic drought, a Nāga swallowed all of the water on the earth then rested on a mountain. When it was attacked by Indra, the god of weather, the Nāga exploded, causing the water to explode out in the form of rivers.
There are many places where the Nāga are viewed as spiritually good, because they bring water up to the base of temples where they are honored. They serve as a defensive force against evil in Buddhism, preventing spirits from entering temples. In addition, they assist the Buddha in descending and ascending onto the earth. When the Buddha was meditating, a Nāga god protected him from the rain by sending him into the sky.
Across all of these associations, Nāga’s meaning is enhanced by its form as a snake. The flowing and uncoiling movements of snakes resemble rivers, hence the popular association. This resemblance is amplified by the designs in which they have multiple heads, indicating how rivers split off. Regarding their association with fertility, snakes have a resemblance to a certain sexual organ. The Nāga’s regal associations are also amplified by their serpentine features, since notably in many cases they were King Cobras, not just any snakes. The religious values of snakes are more difficult to explain. The Nāga or serpent cult, which was responsible for the spread of the Nāga as a symbol, believed the snake was responsible for the creation of the universe. The fact that snakes shed their skin in a process akin to reincarnation may also contribute to their spiritual value in Hinduism and Buddhism.
Like the river, the Nāga is mutable. This is shown literally in its aforementioned variations in design, but there are more interesting examples of its changes. The Hera, a monster of no relation to the Greek god, is a chimera of the Nāga and the dragon. The creature is mostly a Nāga but has the feet of the dragon and is classified as a sea monster. The Nāga spread beyond the cult that proliferated it. When Krishna subdued the Kaliya Nāga, or in other words, when Vishnuism overtook the cult, they lived on in terra cotta statues. The Nāga shed its skin and slithered on into our modern era.