24 J. H. Rivett-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 Rajahs 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. Ina 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 the arrangement a matter of no small 
difficulty. Here the Nag is certainly worshipped as a Mahddeo 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 surmognted 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 Nagpir. 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 Nagptr Province 
where, especially among the lower class, the votaries of Siva or Wdg 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 Nagptr 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 worshipped 
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- 
