NAG PANCHAMI

In Christianity snakes are considered to be evil but in India they are considered to be divine. Almost all the main Hindu deities have a snake attached to them. Shiva wears a snake garland and allows them to crawl all over him. Vishnu sleeps on a snake, Ganesha wears a snake belt, Kartikeya has a snake beneath his foot and so on.

Hindus venerate snakes because they represent eternity as well as impermanence, life as well as death, time and timelessness. A snake represents the three processes of the world- creation, preservation and resurrection. It is fascinating to watch a snake changing its skin. It’s quite a laborious and perhaps painful process. This is a lesson to us humans that we can overcome our mortality and achieve immortality however slow or painful the process may be.

No doubt fear must have been the start of snake worship since there are many venomous snakes in India; the most feared is the King Cobra which is the one that Lord Shiva wears round his neck. It is said to possess many occult powers. Hinduism has a unique way of overcoming the problems that Nature places before us. Instead of dissecting nature and forcing her to bend to our will, we have always tried to woo her and get her to help and protect us. This idea essentially has its basis in the Hindu religion that teaches us to see everything in the world as an aspect of the divine. Man and nature are irrevocably bound together and cannot be separated. If we harm Nature we harm ourselves. This thought is ingrained in our culture so instead of indiscriminately killing those creatures that harm us we always tried to propitiate them and worship them as part of the divine.

In North India a special day has been kept aside for worshipping snakes. It is said that if we worship snakes on this day, they will leave us alone. This day is known as Nag Panchami and comes in the monsoon month of Shravana.

The festival derives its name from the combination of two words - nag, which means cobra/serpent, and panchami, which is the fifth day after the new moon or Shukla Paksha in the month of Shravana (July/August), according to the Hindu calendar. 

Idols of snakes made of mud are decorated and taken in procession and people offer worship. There are some tribes that are famous for catching snakes and they carry live cobras around and show them off and try to make money out of this.

Now the question is whether snake worship has its basis in any scientific data or is it just a superstition caused through fear? Our ancient rishis discovered that the poison in a snake’s body is not generated within its body but from the atmosphere outside. The rishis said that a snake is able to inhale poisonous gases in the neighbourhood extending to a few kilometres in circumference. Hence one of the Sanskrit names for a snake is “Vayubhakshakan” which means “the one who eats air”! The snake that is capable of hissing out a lot of air is also capable of inhaling a vast amount of poison from the air which it retains in its poisonous sac to be used to catch its prey and of course to bite unwary and careless humans.

Air pollution in hot places is more than in cold climates so you will find that nature has provided more snakes in hot climates than in cold. Unfortunately, most people do not know this and always try to kill snakes as soon as they see them. Every creature has a right to live in this world till the end of its allotted life span. One who puts an end to that life before it reaches its end, is guilty of a great crime. Most snakes will not attack unless provoked. Every creature has a role to play in the world. If snakes did not exist in this world, the poison in the air would multiply. The balance of nature is very delicate and very beautifully designed. When the human being disturbs this delicate balance all sorts of troubles are bound to follow. Unfortunately, we think that we are the sole inheritors of this magnificent world and everything is created only for our use.

Nowhere else in India is the cult of snake worship so intricately linked with the daily lives of people as in Kerala. It is closely interwoven with the life of the people of the State and is a component of its rich cultural heritage. Since it was well known to the rishis that snakes keep air pollution in check, all the ancient Kerala households were advised to keep a portion of the garden reserved for them. A snake temple was usually built beneath an old peepul or banyan tree which had spreading leaves and aerial roots. The peepul tree is the only one that breathes out oxygen both by day and night. Our rishis knew this and that is why they told us to venerate it and never cut it down. (As usual a divine reason was always given in Hinduism to mask a scientific truth which would not be understood by the common people of those times.) A lamp would be lit for the snakes and some cow’s milk mixed with rice powder and turmeric would also be kept there. It is a common belief that this is the type of food the snakes love. It is said that the poison in the air is the main cause of arthritis and those who live close to a snake temple will not suffer from this disease.

Often you would find that ants made huge mud hills out of purified mud under these trees reserved for snakes. The ants would forsake their hills and snakes would take them over. The mud from an ant hill is supposed to be most effective in treating all types of cuts and bruises and can even be taken internally for fever and other types of infectious diseases. It should be smeared over the affected parts. Another important fact that was observed was that the snakes were able to direct the electromagnetic waves in lightning into their mud castles thus ensuring that it would not harm the household that had given them shelter.

The snake is a very sensitive creature and can sense the slightest change in the atmosphere, because its whole body is in touch with the ground. It has no ears; it is said to be stone-deaf, so its whole body turns into an organ of hearing. If a tsunami is forecast in Kerala, a snake in the Himalayas will be able to know this a month ahead. Its sense of perception about natural events is acute. It has such a keen sense of discernment that it can perceive certain higher dimensions which human beings are desperate to know. By worshipping them, the Hindus believe that they will also be able to acquire part of their wisdom. This is the basic reason for the worship of snakes in India. It is part of our culture and has existed for many centuries.

Aum Anantaya Namaha!