bS SIK JOSEPH FAYRER, K.C.S.I., ETC., 



by the Siamese iu the middle of the fourteenth century, and 

 since theu it has given place, to a great extent, to Buddhism. 



It prevailed also in Ceylon till the island was converted to 

 Buddhism, in the third or perhaps the sixth century, and there 

 are traces of it there still. 



In China there are only slight traces, but the repetition of 

 the dragon-like forms in connection with temples, pagodas, 

 &c, in China and Burma, is suggestive of something akin 

 to the ophidian worship. 



In India it was not noticed before the Mahabhrata, but in 

 that is mention of the Nagas, the great serpent- worshipping 

 race, who, taking the serpent as their emblem or cognizance, 

 came to consider themselves the descendants of serpents. 

 There are tribes in India called Nagas at the present day. 



Ophiolatry in a modified form still prevails in many parts 

 of India. It is met with in Manipur. Cashmere, Sumbulpore, 

 Nepaul. in many parts of the Deccan and Southern India. 

 On the festival of Nag-Panchmee, snakes are worshipped by 

 most of the lower tribes of the Deccan. 



Serpent-worship has no place in Brahminism, but the Hindus 

 of the present day, if they do not directly worship the snake, 

 will neither injure nor kill, but rather propitiate it. This 

 feeling maybe as much due to fear of any bodily harm it may 

 do them, as to the idea of its possessing supernatural powers. 

 Tylor says the serpent has been taken as the symbol of the 

 world, of the Tauut, or heaven-god of the Phoenicians, and 

 as the emblem of eternity ; in the latter case it is depicted 

 with its tail in its mouth. It may have been the personifica- 

 tion of evil in the Apophis serpent of the Egyptian Hades, 

 and it was so in the wicked serpent of the Zoroastrians, Aji 

 Dahaka; Ajdaha is still applied to the larger constricting 

 snakes. Sir George Birdwood tells me that besides abstract 

 evil, Aji Dahaka symbolised death, destruction, the storm 

 cloud, &c. " There Ingromaniyus (Ahriman) the deadly 

 created a mighty serpent, and snow, the work of Deva." 

 Cyclopaedia of India (Balfour). He also reminds me that the 

 deadly serpent is the symbol of evil in all Eastern countries, 

 though there, as in Greece and Koine, it may have had also a 

 creative symbolism. 



But time does not permit that I should dwell longer on 

 I his exceedingly interesting subject ; I must rather describe 

 to you those forms of the serpent in which the lethal 

 attributes exist in their most marked conditions, producing 

 Jear and repugnance, if not the worship of olden times. 



