24 J. H. Kivett-Carnac — The Snake Symbol in India. [No. 1, 



Schwalbach, and other snake wells in Europe will suggest themselves to 

 many. 



Later I visited the Benares Palace of the Eajahs of Nagpur situated 

 on the Ganges and built in the palmy days of the Bhonslahs, and when a 

 visit to Benares was frequently undertaken by some of the family or its chief 

 dependents. In a shrine within the buildings, I found the Mahadeo repre- 

 sented by a cobra or Nag, the coils of which were so elaborately intertwined 

 as to make an accurate sketch of tbe arrangement a matter of no small 

 difficulty. Here the Nag is certainly worshipped as a Mahadeo or phallus. 

 The much intertwined Nag is shewn in Plate VII, fig. 1. 



The Palace of the Bhonslahs at Benares brings me to Nagpur, where, 

 many years ago, I commenced to make, with but small success, some rough 

 notes on serpent worship. Looking up some old sketches, I find that the 

 Mahadeo in the oldest temples at Nagpur is surmounted by the Nag as at 

 Benares. And in the old temple near the palace of Nagpur, or city of the 

 Nag or cobra, is a five-headed snake elaborately coiled as shewn in Fig. 2, 

 Plate VII. The Bhonslahs apparently took the many-coiled Nag with them 

 to Benares. A similar representation of the Nag is found in the temple near 

 the Itwarah gate at Nagpur. Here again the Nag or cobra is certainly 

 worshipped as Mahadeo or the phallus, and as already noticed, there are 

 certain obvious points connected with the position assumed by the cobra 

 when excited, and the expansion of the hood, which suggest the reason for 

 this snake, in particular, being adopted as a representation of the phallus 

 and an emblem of Siva. 



The worship of the snake is very common in the old Nagpur Province 

 where, especially among the lower class, the votaries of Siva or Nag bhu- 

 shan, " he who wears snakes as his ornaments," are numerous. It is likely 

 enough that the City took its name from the Nag temple, still to be seen 

 there, and that the river Nag perhaps took its name from the city or 

 temple, and not the city from the river, as some think. Certain it is that 

 many of the Kunbi or cultivating class worship the snake, and the snake 

 only, and that this worship is something more than the ordinary supersti- 

 tious awe, with which all Hindus regard the snake. I find from my notes 

 that one Kunbi whom I questioned in old days, when I was a Settlement 

 Officer in Camp in the Nagpur Division, stated that he worshipped the Nag 

 and nothing else ; that he worshipped clay images of the snake, and when he 

 could afford to pay snake-catchers for a look at a live one, he worshipjjed 

 the living snake ; that if he saw a Nag on the road, he would worship it, and 

 that he believed no Hindu would kill a Nag or cobra, if he knew it were 

 a Nag. He then gave me the following list of articles he would use in wor- 



