A Brahman, having purchased premises in the ancient town of Dholka, set to work to make ex cavations for a new building, and in so doing came upon a subterranean chamber, which contained a great deal of property. There was, however, a large snake stationed there to protect the treasure, which snake appeared to the Brahman by night in a dream, and said to him, ' This property is mine, and I live here for its protection ; therefore you must not injure the chamber,nor covet the treasure which it contains. If you do so, I will cut off all your posterity.' In the morning, the Brahman poured a vessel of hot oil into the chamber, so that the snake died. He then destroyed the chamber, having first removed tbe treasure, and burned the body of the snake in due form in the yard of his house. With the treasure he had thus obtained he erected splendid buildings ; but he never had a son, and his daughter remained childless, and whoever received any part of the property, or became his servant, or acted as his agent or as his family priest, was childless too. These things happened, it is said, about A.D. 1830, and it is the general belief in India that serpents are always to be found wherever ft hoard is buried.
Leprosy; ophthalmia, and-childlessness are sup posed by Hindus to be the punishment of men who in a former or present birth may have killed a serpent, and to be relieved of these the worship of the serpent is enjoined. The idea of their curat ive virtues is very old, and is still believed in India. A Hindu attacked by fever or other diseases, makes a serpent of brass or clay, and performs cer t\ tam ceremonies o its honour, in furtherance of his ----rmayery,--guch eremonies are particularly effica cious when the mo n is in the nakshatra (mansion, sign, or asterism) called Sarpa or the serpent ; called also Aslesha. The 11th day of the bright half of the month Ashada commences with the summer solstice. In Hinduism it is the night of the gods ; nine days thereafter, that is, on the fifth after the full moon,`is a festival in honour of Devi, the goddess of nature, surnamed Manna, who, while Vishnu and all the gods were sleeping, sat in the shape of a serpent on a branch of a Euphorbia (Snuhi) to preserve mankind from the venom of snakes. The 5th day of the bright half of the month Sravana is calledtga-panchami, and is .sacred to the demi-gods, ' the form of serpents, who are enumerated in ale Padilla and Garuda Puranas. Doors of hbuses are smeared with cow-dung and leaves of the nim tree (species of Melia and Azadirachta), as a preservative from poisonous reptiles. Both in the Padilla and Garuda Puranas is mention of the serpent Kaliya, whom Krishna slew in his infant hand, and which is also worshipped on this day. The feast of Naga-panchami, from Naga, serpent, and Pan chaini, five, is celebrated, as the name implies, on the 5th day of the bright half of the month of Sravana ; but some hold it on the 4th day also, when the day is called Naga-chauti (Naga, ser pent, and Chauti, four). This day is observed chiefly among the Brahmans and other Hindus of Northern India, Maharashtra, and Telingana. Tamil Brahmans and Sudras do not observe it. On this day the women bathe and adorn them selves in their best clothes and jewels, and proceed to the places where the figures of the naps or cobras are consecrated and established, or to ant hills, supposed to be the abode of snakes, where they pour milk and place garlands of flowers, but especially of cotton, and the usual accompaniments of Hindu worship, such as betel-nuts, frui ts, cakes, etc. Some worship at their own home the figure
of the naga (or cobra) made in' gold or silver ; and others send for a living cobra to their homes, feed it with milk, and give sinall presents to the snake-charmers who frequent the streets on this day. Men and women having no children, and others svho are troubled with aihnents of the ear, make anew, or fulfil their old, vows on this day, should the object of their desires have been obtained.
The enemies of the cobra, mythologically as well as in fact, are the Garuda, the bird-vehicle of Vishnu, and the Mayil or the peacock, which is the favourite vehicle of Subramaniya, the second son of Siva. In the south of India, the accepted type of Garuda is. the common 13rahmany kite (Haliastur Indus), which is held in respect, and fed with goat's or sheep's flesh on Sunday morn ings, by those who consider it a favourable omen to see a Garuda on the morning. of that day, or on the evening of Thursday. This bird pounces upon and carries off the cobra in its claws, and kills it. Garuda is also the proverbial, but not the utter, destroyer, for he spared one, they and their archetype being, in reference to created beings, eternal. His continual and destined state of war fare with the serpent, a shape mostly assumed by the enemies of the virtuous incarnations or deified heroes of the Hindus, is a continued allegory of the conflicts between vice and virtue, so infinitely personified. Garuda at length appears the coadjutor of all virtuous, sin-subduing efforts, as tbe vehicle of the chastening and triumphant party, and conveys him on the wings of the winds to the regions of eternal day. Destroyer of ser pents, Nag-antaka, is one of his names. Some mythical Hindu legends make Garuda the off spring of Kasyapa and Diti. Diti laid an egg, which it was predicted would produce her a deliverer from some great affliction. After a lapse of five hundred years, Garuda sprang from the egg, flew to the abode of Indra, extinguished the fire that stfrrounded it, conquered its guards, the devata, and bore off the arorita (ambrosia), which enabled him to liberate his captive—mother. A few drops of this immortal beverage falling on the Kusa grass (the Poll, cynosuroides), it became eternally consecrated ; and the serpents, greedily licking it up, so lacerated their tongues with the sharp grass, that they have ever since remained forked ; but the boon of eternity was ensured to them by their thus prinking of tho immortal fluid. This cause of snakes having forked tongues is still popularly, in the tales of India, attributed to the above greediness. The poison of the cobra— perhaps an innocuous substance in the stomach—is eaten by old opium-caters, and cast-off skin is used for magical purposes, and some say for keeping out vermin. In the district of North Canara, in the tiduk of Cumpta, is a place called Naga Tirtha. There is a small well-built tank, around which are stnall artificial caves containing thousands of ser pent images. In almost every village througliont India are to be seen, some beautifully carved, others the rudest style, figures of the Naga or cobra di capello set up as objects of worship, and two are occasionally represented twining round a I roil as in the figures in the mythology of Greece.