The Naga are the divine serpent-beings of Hindu (and wider Indian and Buddhist) myth — semi-divine, half-human half-serpent (or great cobra) beings of immense power, beauty and wisdom, who dwell in a magnificent underworld realm, guard treasures and waters, and are worshipped as protective and powerful deities of fertility, water and the earth. The divine serpents, the Nagas are the powerful, beautiful serpent-beings who rule the waters and the underworld and guard its treasures.
The Divine Serpents
The Nagas (Sanskrit Nāga, “serpent”) are a race of divine or semi-divine serpent-beings — great cobras or half-human, half-serpent beings of immense power, beauty, wisdom and supernatural ability. They can take human form or appear as great, multi-hooded cobras, often with jewels in their hoods, and they are beings of magic, power and great age. They dwell in Patala (or Naga-loka), a magnificent, jewel-filled underworld realm beneath the earth and the waters, where they live in splendour, ruling their serpent-kingdom and guarding its treasures. They are a major and ancient class of beings in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain myth and in Indian folk religion.
The Guardians of Waters and Treasure
The Nagas are deeply associated with water and the earth — they are the guardians and lords of rivers, lakes, springs, wells, the rains, and the waters, and of the fertility and treasures of the earth. They control the waters and the rains (and thus fertility and the harvest), they guard the treasures hidden in the earth and the waters, and they are connected to the fertility of the land and of women. As guardians of water, treasure and fertility, they are powerful and important beings, propitiated for rain, fertility, prosperity and protection. They are worshipped widely in Indian folk religion (Naga worship, the festival of Nag Panchami), especially in connection with snakes, water, fertility and protection against snakebite. They are powerful, can be benevolent or wrathful, and are treated with reverence and care.
The Great Nagas and the Cosmic Serpents
Among the Nagas are great and famous individuals who play major roles in Hindu myth: Shesha (Ananta), the cosmic serpent of infinity upon whom Vishnu reclines; Vasuki, the king of serpents, used as the churning-rope at the churning of the ocean; Takshaka and Kaliya (the serpent subdued by Krishna), and others. The Nagas appear throughout the epics and Puranas — sometimes as allies and kin of gods and heroes (gods and heroes marry Naga princesses; the Naga realm is visited), sometimes as foes (the great enmity between the Nagas and Garuda, the eagle who is their enemy and devourer). They are a vast and important race, ranging from the cosmic serpents who uphold the universe to the local Nagas of village wells and snake-shrines.
The Powerful Serpent-Beings of the Deep
The Nagas endure as the divine serpent-beings of Hindu and wider Indian myth — the powerful, beautiful, wise half-human half-serpent beings who dwell in the jewelled underworld, guard the waters and treasures, and are worshipped as deities of water, fertility and protection. They embody the Indian reverence for the serpent as a being of power, mystery, fertility and the deep, the guardian of waters and treasures, and the powerful semi-divine race that dwells beneath the world; and they stand as the divine serpents — the great cobra-beings of the deep, the lords of the waters and the underworld, worshipped and revered across India as powerful guardians of fertility, water, treasure and the hidden depths.
The divine serpent-beings, half-human half-cobra, who dwell in a jewelled underworld and rule the waters and treasures of the earth — powerful, beautiful and wise, worshipped across India as lords of fertility and the deep.