1879.] Pratapa Chandra Gliosha —Remarks on Hr. Carnac's paper. 81 
Since the meeting, Babu Pratapa Chandra Gihosha has kindly for¬ 
warded the following note on the articles exhibited by Mr. Carnac. 
It is interesting to observe how the ornamental and the artistic help 
in complicating the myths of the Hindu religion. The occurrence of the 
snake on several of the articles exhibited is ornamental in some and in¬ 
consistent with the Sastras in a few. The snake on the spoon or ladle is 
for ornamental purposes, and that on the bell is altogether out of place. 
The Sastras make no mention of the necessity of any such figures on the 
handles of spoons, sacrificial ladles or water-pots. In the case of the bell 
the only figure directed to be represented on a religious bell is that of 
Garuda, the bird-god. The Padma Purana has the following—“ He is not 
a Bhagavat (worshipper of Bhagavan) in this iron age who has not in his 
house a conch-shell or a bell surmounted by a Garuda or the bird-god. 
Such a bell as the above is used in the worship of Vasudeva (Vishnu). 
And although in the Sastras regarding the worship of Siva and Bama- 
chandra, it is nowhere provided that the bell used in such service should 
be adorned with figures of snake and Hanuman, (the monkey-god), the 
vahanas of the two gods respectively, yet the bell-maker in his devoutness 
has added these figures to the bell thinking that such a bell would serve 
the threefold worship of Siva, Vishnu and Ramachandra. The white paint 
of sandal-wood paste on the lingam in the form of a circle or a semicircle 
and a dot, is intended to represent the sacerdotal thread ( poita ) and the 
mark ( phontd) and, in the case of the semicircle, the half moon which is 
. said to adorn the forehead of Siva. 
In the paper on Tree and Serpent worship published in Part I, No. 3, 
J. A. S. B. for 1870, Ananta the serpent king is said to have a thousand 
heads and four arms. In the Briddha Baudhayana quoted by Hemadri, 
a Nag is ordinarily described to have five heads. 
frarsTJi T tr rTT T rraafrtNrf I 
In the Visvakarma Sastra, Ananta is said to have a hundred thousand 
heads, and the other secondary eight Nagas to have seven heads each. 
+ + + + J + + + 
A Naga is said to have hoods and the body of a man, the lower 
extremities being like those of a reptile. A sarpa s or serpent is a reptile. 
The three-headed or the nine-headed snakes are imaginative figures, they 
have no foundation in the Sastras. The figures of snakes forming backs of 
