Buddha died B.C. 543. Buddhism was in India only a struggling, lingering sect till the thne of Asoka, whose edicts, "Lc. 255, remain engraved on rocks. In the inscriptions of Asoka, Buddhism appears as a system of pure abstract morality, no trace being exhibited of the worehip of Buddha himself, or of the serpent or tree. About the beginning of the Christian era, however, a Naga or Turanian revelation became incorporated with it. It had at this time fallen into a state of decadence, and was represented by no fewer than eighteen different sects. The Buddhist school of this time was known as the Hinayana. At this time Nagarjuna appeared. The sayings of Sakya Muni had been during his lifetime recorded by the Nagas, from whom Nagarjuna obtained the documents, and he proclaimed them in A.D. 410. The gateways of the Sanchi tope belong to the first half of the lst century of the Christian era, and though subsequent to the Naga revelation the sculptures scarcely indicate its existence. Buddha does not appear on the Sanchi sculptures as an object of worship. The serpent is there, but rare. The dhagoba or depository of the relics of siints is there, as also are the tree, the wheel, and other etnblems, and the whole of the sculptures on the Sanchi tope may be illustrative of the Hinayana school of Buddhism, at the period when other doctrines were about to be introduced. The Amravati sculptures, again, belong to a period 300 years later than that of Sanclii, and in them the new school of Mahayana Buddhism inay be studied. In these Buddha is an object of worship, but the serpent is his co-equal. The dhagoba, tree, and wheel are reverenced, and the sculptures con tain all the legends of the later books, though in a purer form. Hindus, Dasya, and other men, women, and animals, especially monkeys, appear iu the sculptures worshipping the serpent and other gods. The serpents are all divine, five and seven headed, and representations are numerous of the Naga angelic orders, the female Naga, with one serpent only springing from the back, the male Naga with three.
At Sanchi the serpent-worship had been in the background, and the tree-worship prominent. At Amravati, in the oldest part, the tree flourishes as usual ; but in the later portion the serpent appears ten or twelve times as the principal object of worship ; twice he ehields the head of Buddha, and forty or fifty times he appears speading hie protecting hood of heads over mjas and persons of importance.
This may be reckoned the culmination of Buddh istie serpent-worship in India. Four e,enturies I later, Brahmanism revived, and Iltyldhisin was banished to Further India, Ceylon, China, and Tibet ; but tree - worehip has been more openly tulliered to by the Buddhists in the island of Ceylon than that of serpents.
In the temple of Nakhon Vat in Cambodia, now in ruins; every angle of the roof, every cornice, every entablature, bears the seven-headed ser pent, and there are tanks in which the living serpents dwelt and were adored. With the dis appearance of Iluddhism from Hindustan, and the rise of modern Brahmanism under the leaderehip of Sankaracharya, aboutthe beginning of the 9111 century am., the erection of such Buddhist build ings ceased, but the worship of trees and snakes has been continued under other forms. Dynasties have ruled claiming to be of Naga descent ; but now Vasuki and Sesha are kings of the serpent deities who live in Patala. The serpent-goddess
is worshipped in the Euphorbia antiquorum. This goddess mother of the serpents, and goddess pre siding over them, is Manasa, the object of love and devotion, and, as the name implies, an alle gorical creation. Her brother, the chief of the serpents, is Ananta or Sesha, eternity, literally endless, of which the universally acknowledged symbol is a coiled snake. Though represented as the support of Vishnu while floating on the fathomless sea of chaos before creation (God in eternity), he is, in the Puranas, described as having the form of Vishnu, meaning, perhaps, the eternity of Vishnu.
The Cheru of Hindustan declare themselves to be descended from the great serpent, and are supposed to be the remnant of the Nagbansi of Magadha. The crest and eignature of the raja of Chutia Nagpur is the head and hood of a snake called Nagsanp. The god of the raja of Manipur is the Pakung-ba mike, from which the royal family claim descent. When it appears, it is coaxed on to a cushion by the priestess in attendance, who then performs certain ceremonies to please it.
Many legends are told by the people relating to snake beliefs. Two guests, says an author, came once on a time to the house of a Shrawuk Waneeo. The master of the house was at the market, and his wife, after she bad made her fiends sit down, was obliged to go away to the well for water. 'While the guests sat waiting for the master of- the house, a large snake made its appearance. One of them jumped up and pinned it to the ground with a stick, while the other set to work to find a split bamboo, which people keep ready in their houses for securing snakes. Meanwhile the woman came back with the water, and seeing the snake pinned to the ground, cried out, Let him go, let him go ; he is our Poonvuj Dev ; be used to get into my mother-in-law's head, and set her a-trembling, and then he would mention the natne of my father-in-law, who died some time ago, and say that it was he. Ile said also that his soul had been wrapped up in his property, on which account he had become a snake, and Wit.S going to live in the house. One day he bit a neighbour of ours, and the Jute° came to cure the man. Poor wuj Dev then set the neighbour a-trembling, and said he had bitten him because he fought with hie son, and that he would quit him when he got security that there ilould be no more quarrelling. In this way he quitted him. From that day forth if the snake go to our neighbours' houses no one molests him. If at any time we were to set hun down at a place twenty miles off, he would come back to this very spot. He has often touched my foot, but be never bit me ; and if I happen to be gone to draw water, and the child cry at home, he will rock him in his cradle. This I've seen him do many a time.' In this way she prevented their interfering with the snake, and, releasing him, paid him obeisance. The guest, too, who had seized him, took off his turband, and said, ' 0 father snake, forgive my having pinned you. to the earth. I am your child !' After a short time, a cat having killed the snake, the people of the house took the pieces of it and burned them on a pyre, offering, in fire-sacrifice, a cocoanut and sandal-wood, with clarified butter. This was to perform the snake's funeral rites, and is customary at the present day.