Sahitya Akademi
Snakes in a Basket
Author(s): Neeti Singh
Source: Indian Literature , January-February 2022, Vol. 66, No. 1 (327) (January-February
2022), pp. 103-110
Published by: Sahitya Akademi
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Snakes in a Basket: Nag Panchami,
Sarpa Satra and Primal Wisdom
Neeti Singh
A basketful of tame little cobras
comes into the tame little house,
their brown-wheat glisten ringed with ripples.
They lick the room with their bodies, curves
uncurling, writing a sibilant alphabet of panic
on my floor.
Mother gives them milk
in saucers. She watches them suck
and bare the black-line design
etched on the brass of the saucer.
The snake man wreathes their writhing
round his neck
for father’s smiling
money.
But I scream.
A.K. Ramanujan’s poem ‘Snakes’ (quoted above) is a compelling account of
the strange fear and fascination we Indians harness towards the naga/cobra
and other cousins of the snake fraternity. There is fear of the serpent’s swift
fluid movement, fear of the venom that springs from its fangs, and there is
ignorance, which often provokes extreme reactions at the sight of a snake. In
yogic parlance, in shaiva and vaishnav semiotics, naga-deva (the cobra-god)
holds a special place as empowered, sacred and esoteric. Even the kundalini
shakti that resides in the tailbone, in the base chakra of human anatomy is
described as serpent-energy. The moment of enlightenment is described as a
moment when the kundalini energy rises like a serpent from the Muladhara
chakra and moves through the Sushumna Nadi (central nerve of the spine), up
to the Sahasrara chakra that crowns the head. Snakes according to Sadhguru
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and according to the science of esoteric spirituality, are keepers of our highest
spiritual condition. In common lore too they are shown to haunt ancient
ruins, temples, old treasure and caves. Bollywood films (especially in the
1950s-70s era) affirm the general beliefs and often cast lead actors as naga-
nagin that are powerful, shape-shifting creatures. There are several temples
across India — big and small — dedicated to the naga, each of them adds their
unique lore to the collective snake narrative. In Kashmir, which is known for
its long tradition of tantra and Shiva bhakti, there are over seven hundred
temples devoted to snakes. The city of Nagpur gets its name after the nagas as
it was once a land thickly infested with snakes. The Mannarasala temple of
Kerala has a fascinating story to tell. The temple is devoted to Nagaraja the
five-headed snake god who was born to human parents as a blessing for they
had saved snakes from a huge fire. It is believed Nagaraja took samadhi and still
resides in his subtler form somewhere in the temple chambers.
Ancient civilizations across the world associate the snake with primal
creation myths, they approach it with reverence as a creature/god/spirit, that
is intelligent and unfathomable. The snake is also referenced for its special
aphrodisiac and healing qualities and popularly regarded as one that holds
esoteric wisdom and is symbolic of eternity. In Greek myths, for example,
there were shrines devoted to the Aesculapius snakes, which were known to
crawl at night over sleeping, sick people and lick them back to health. In
Mesopotamian and Sumerian cultures, the hooded viper is worshipped as
snake god, Nordic myths are full of snake-spirits, snake-guardians and snake-
gods that live in lakes and wells. In many cultures the killing of a snake is
considered taboo and many civilizations regard snakes as shape-shifting,
magical entities. In India, television serials around shape-shifting women
characters are very popular. The snake is thus perceived as an exceptionally
intelligent and intrinsic agency in the sublime cosmos, it is also closely
associated with mother earth and her mysteries. Ancient civilizations across
the Americas, Europe, Australia and Asia honour the serpent in unique ways
as a symbol of wisdom, supernatural healing powers, and deep primal
connections with the ocean and the under-earth. The Bible however goes
against the common grain; it defines a snake as evil and satanic.
The purview of my essay is to examine the material reality of the naga-
deva in the Indian context. The snake archetype in the Indian collective, comes
across as slippery, insidious and layered within contexts of the spiritual and
occult. Naga-deva in India enjoys cult status in religious ceremonies, ritual and
Vedic creation myths and among the Hindu gods. It is also worshipped as a
minor/major god during the festival of Nag Panchami during the monsoon
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Neeti Singh
season in Shravan maas (in July-August). As I write this paper, we in India are
already in the last week of Shravan — holy month dedicated to lord Shiva and
his favourite nagas. All through the month practising Hindus have fasted
eating just once a day. The festival of Nag Panchami too has gone past and I have
just finished reading this sleek, handsomely-bound-in-black edition of Arun
Kolatkar’s Sarpa Satra (2004).
This modern epic in English is a well calibrated critique of the blind
language of hierarchy and power, of people who make and break laws as per
their convenience. Central to the poem are two minor events (not so minor in
retrospect,) taken from the great epic Mahabharata. First event is the burning
down of Khandav vann (forest), by Arjuna and Krishna who are shown by
Kolatkar as indulging themselves in heartless, one-sided onslaught against the
denizens of the placid forest which they have set ablaze, and employ their
supernatural weapons to kill the hordes that try to escape:
Trumpeting elephants
rushing towards water
for safety
trample on half-cooked turtles
as they crawl out of
the boiling lakes.
The second incidence of violence is a spinoff of the first holocaust. It is as
bizarre and cold blooded as the first episode but this time it wears the web of
righteousness and revenge. The story goes that among the forest animals
that were charred to death by Krishna and Arjuna’s onslaught, there was a
certain naga family — the serpent wife and son of Takshak, who was a king-
cobra bestowed with divine powers. Takshak was away when the tragedy
transpired, but imagine his shock, grief and rage on returning, that he had not
been there when “he was needed the most: to defend his wife and son/and
protect/the forest he held in trust for the gods.” The enraged Takshak pledged
to avenge the murder of his wife; his son had escaped. But why, Kolatkar
points out, why did Takshak wait for so long, why did he go for Arjuna’s
grandson Parikshit and not Arjuna himself ? Kolatkar questions the wisdom
of this chain of events that finally led up to Janamejaya’s Sarpa Satra — yet
another disproportionate and ill-timed act of violence and revenge.
When Yudhishthir left for the Himalayas, Parikshit who followed his
uncle to the Kuru throne was aware of Takshak’s intentions. And he did his
best to fortify himself. And one day Takshak reached the royal chamber in the
guise of a worm curled up in fruit, suddenly expanded in size and gave
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Parikshit a venomous death. Janamejaya who was but a boy at the time of his
father’s death, was oblivious of the conditions of his demise. Years later he was
enlightened about this incident by sage Uttanka, who himself had an axe to
grind with Takshak. At last Janamejaya knew; he was aware:
It was a scheming snake, I’m told,
with a grudge against my great-grandfather
that killed my father.
Killed him with venom
that had gained in potency
through years of patient waiting,
that could with a single drop,
turn a full-grown banyan tree
in a flash into a crackling cloud of ash.
Years after Parikshit’s death the narrative of violence had again lifted its head.
Uttanka and several others in Janamejaya’s court agreed that the
extermination of Takshak and the entire snake race was a fit revenge for a
king’s death. And preparations for a Sarpa Satra commenced. Provisions were
made for a huge celestial fire around which brahmins sat pouring ghee and
chanting mantras that had the power to pull snakes out of their nests and draw
them flying through the distance to drop themselves into the livid fire.
Sarpa Satra rigorously interrogates and exposes this minor (lesser
known) narrative of violence perpetrated by the central/heroic characters of
the Mahabharata and compels us to confront some uncomfortable truths.
How, for example could the noble, “dharma-prasth” Arjuna and Lord Krishna
resort to such mindless plunder and not experience even an iota of guilt? Why
did Takshak not avenge himself on Arjuna? “Why did he wait/for his
grandson to grow up/to give him a taste of your terrible poison/instead
of Arjuna.”
Kolatkar exposes the abuse of power and privilege by those very
characters whom the collective worships and iconizes as keepers of dharma
and karma. Also, pertinent questions are raised around the utter disregard for
the welfare of other life-forms that sustain and harness the wellbeing of the
planet. The arrogance of humankind, the abuse of power, the utter disregard
for environmental and ecological concerns are themes that foreground
Kolatkar’s Sarpa Satra.
However, what saves the poem from lapsing into tragic gloom is
Kolatkar’s witty and interactive rendering and his terse hold on the narrative
structure. The tenor of the poem is consciously kept very colloquial and
contemporary. For example, when questioning the fitness of Janamejaya’s
actions, Kolatkar writes:
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Neeti Singh
Point out the flaws in his logic.
Tell him how morally unjustifiable
his position is,
or how politically incorrect.
He often employs academic expressions. “O for God’s sake! / Is this a yajna /
or some kind of a snake charmer’s convention!” Later he refers to the
brahmins as “goons” — “Janamejaya’s goons will beat you up.” or when he
points at the fact that earth itself is held in place by the naga Sesha. What if he
hears of Janamejaya’s actions and decides to give the planet, a shrug?
and it will be all over.
Khatam.
The Sarpa Satra is a collection of poems arranged in three sections:
Janamejaya
Jaratkaru Speaks to Her Son Aastika
The Ritual Bath.
Section one updates the reader on the revenge story of Takshak, king of
snakes, who killed Parikshit to avenge the death of his wife and son at the
hands of Arjuna and Krishna. As a consequence of his father’s death by snake
bite, Janamejaya prepares to avenge Takshak by wiping out the entire snake
species from the face of earth. How fair is this? Arun Kolatkar poses this
question through his poem. The second section, which is the largest, consists
of three long poems, rendered as an address by the learned brahmin sage
Jaratkaru to his son Aastika (born of his union with wife Manasa, a snake
goddess). Jaratkaru tells Aastika about the tragic plunder of Khandav-vann,
and the ongoing mass cremation of helpless snakes flying to their deaths over
the sacrificial flames. He urges him to go, enter the sacrificial arena and put an
end to Janamejaya’s sarpasatra.
“The Ritual Bath” which is the third and last section of Kolatkar’s Sarpa
Satra is short and anti-climactic. It wraps up the sacrificial jamboree with
details on how the brahmins, “honoured guests, vedic wizards and other
intellectual superstars of the show”, were generously rewarded. And returned
to their respective homes, “bearing wealth beyond measure — /cartloads of
gold, /herds of cattle with golden horns, /slave girls dripping pearls.”
The festival of Nag Panchami is believed to be celebrated on the very day
on which the ritual burning of snakes was brought to a halt by the young
learned brahmin. However, although Janamejaya’s sarpasatra was stopped
midway by Aastika, and the ceremony and the sacrificial fire suffused and
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brought to a halt; there is still the unfinished business of several other such
yajnas. The sacrificial blaze of these yajnas continue to rage somewhere deep
in the forests of the Himalayas, and as Kolatkar says, it “continues to consume
/ rakshasa / rocks / trees.”
Besides, Janamejaya’s sarpasatra, there are several other narratives
threaded into the festival of Nag Panchami. Among these narratives are also the
story of Krishna’s victory over naga Kaliya, or the great churning of the ocean
(for elixir) by the devas and the demons with Shiva’s favourite naga Vasuki as
their churning rope; and the belief that naga Sesha continues to hold on his
head the entire weight of planet earth till date.
Several origin myths and epics including folk and scriptural references
have accounts describing many great and brave serpents. All these micro and
macro narratives, tie humankind with the serpent motif — literally, mystically
and metaphorically. Beneath the disintegration of urban and metropolitan
chaos, the serpent lore lives on in the collective memory of people across
India, Nepal, Bangladesh and other neighbouring cultures where people
celebrate Nag Panchami and worship snakes made of dough, brass or copper;
some even draw them on their house walls while others are brave enough to
worship snakes in the wild open jungle. They worship them for the serpentine
kundalini, as well as for being the powerful agents that mysteriously protect
the ecology; they also pray to them for protection and for mercy.
Consider Sir James Frazer’s work The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and
Religion (1890), which documents the cultural habits of the snake tribe of
Punjab, “The snake tribe is not uncommon in the Punjab. Members of it will
not kill a snake, and they say that its bite does not hurt them. If they find a dead
snake, they put clothes on it and give it a regular funeral. Ceremonies closely
analogous to this Indian worship of the snake have survived in Europe into
recent times and doubtless date from a very primitive plagiarism.”
Snakes according to Sadhguru “are very sensitive to certain types of
energies”, they possess the gift of subtlety and mystical perception, which is
why they are drawn to highly charged ancient temples, sites of occult
ceremony, and caves. In the Mystic’s Musings, Sadhguru affirms Sir James
Frazer’s observation on snakes being given a “regular funeral”, when he says
that “the snake is at a very significant step in the evolutionary process of the
being…. It is based on this that in this culture, you are not supposed to kill a
snake. Are you aware that a snake always gets a proper burial, like a human
burial, because in terms of its being, it is very close to a human being. So,
killing snakes amounts to murder.”
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Sadhguru (2003) and Frazer (1890) both speak of indigenous wisdom
and traditions that honour the snake’s exceptional status, and both refer to
pagan traditions (across India and Europe), which give the dead snake a
“regular funeral” / a “proper burial.” Where then does this place the callous
violence of the Mahabharata’s gods and godlike characters? Where does this
place Janmejaya (Arjuna’s great grandson), who in a moment of great passion
resolved to avenge his father, Parikshit’s death at the hands of the venomous
Takshak by launching a grand snake holocaust? And where in the entire
matrix, is Arun Kolatkar?
A surface reading of Sarpa Satra, posits Kolatkar as dissenting,
postmodern and acerbic. But when we weigh him in the scale of Frazer and
Sadhguru’s observations, we find him standing on the side of pagan and the
indigenous wisdoms. Across, on the opposite bank stand the snake burners —
the so-called upholders of dharma — that is Arjun, Krishna, Janamejaya, sages
Uttanka and Ved Vyasa, Indra and even Takshak, the shape-shifting powerful
naga would find himself in their company for he was no less. Suddenly we find
ourselves in the presence of two opposing life-forces and the tension is
palpable. On one side is the structured state power and on the other end, the
wisdom of the indigenous systems. While the former speaks of exclusivity,
ceremony and violence, the later speaks of inclusive rituals and co-existence.
And this brings me to my final question. The sympathetic perception,
the gaze of equal treatment and justice, that we take across the board for all
castes and creeds, human and subhuman, is this approach really as modern as
we presume it to be? Are we not regressing under the garb of modernity and
instead of using the knowledge that has percolated down over the ages; we are
regressing more and more? No wonder the Kali Yuga is mentioned towards
the end of the Mahabharata.
One recalls the advent of Sat Yuga that has been mentioned as following
the Kali Yuga, and is merely a few hundred years away. It was a space of respect
and coexistence where humans lived along with all kinds of life forms in a
climate where each life form had its role and a respectful place in the
existential network. Can we say then, that our so-called crazy, banner-holding,
sloganeering, resisting voices are perhaps saner than the hierarchical stance of
the so-called self-righteous and self-asserting mindsets? I leave it to the reader
to recapitulate and ponder the mess that we are currently living in. I have no
definite answers. Nor would I like to posit any fixed notions. To do so would
be to install myself in a space of hierarchy and power, a space of abuse, and go
down Janamejaya’s route.
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Works Cited
Kolatkar, Arun. SarpaSatra. PrasPrakashan, 2004.
Frazer, Sir James. The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion. Temple
of Earth Publishing, 1922.[Link]
[Link]
Rajagopalachari, C. Mahabharata. Bhavan’s Book University, 2007.
Ramanujan, A. K. ‘Snakes’, Poetry Foundation. July 1961, [Link]
[Link]/ poetrymagazine/browse? contentId=28723
__. ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on
Translation’,
The Collected Essays of A K Ramanujan. OUP, 2004. (131-160)
Sadhguru. Mystic’s Musings. Isha Foundation, 2003. (157-158)
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