WHO WERE THE NAGAS ?

The nagas or serpent-people of India and Malaysia have always been a great fascination and mystery to me. In the above quoted book, it is said of them:

"The nagas are linked with the antigods [asuras]. They are represented as half human, half serpent. They are possessed of great courage and are quick and violent. They are handsome and wear jewels, crowns, and large earrings....

"The nagas are also known as serpents (sarpa), creeping-creatures (pannaga), those creeping-on-their-chests (uraga), those creeping-on-their-shoulders (bhu-janga), goat-eaters (ajagara)....

"The nagas dwell in an underworld, the serpent-world (naga-loka), which is an immense domain crowded with palaces, houses, towers, and pleasure gardens. This serpent world is also called Patala or Niraya [Hell]. It's main city is the City-of-Pleasures (Bhogovati) ruled by Vasuki."

It goes on to say that the nagas had three kings: Vasuki, Takshaka and Shesha. I have mentioned Shesha elsewhere on these pages. Their favorite places to dwell are by the banks of rivers and streams, or in the sea itself. Danielou says, "The nagas are known as the enemies of the gods...." However, this is not entirely true. Takshaka was known to be a close friend of the 'pre-Aryan' god Indra, who later became associated with Shiva. Shiva is also known as the Lord of Serpents and wears a large cobra wrapped about his neck. This is said to be Vasuki. He also wears serpents as arm-bands and is sometimes shown to be surrounded by them. The nagas are helpful to men and even intermarry with them. The human hero of the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, Arjuna, was married to a beautiful naga girl, Ulupi.

Interestingly, Shiva is always shown with red or auburn hair.

GENII

These serpent-people are considered genii in the Hindu pantheon. That is (to use the Theosophical Society's glossary once more):

In one significance, a genius is an instructing divinity, but not necessarily of the higher classes. In the special sense found in Greek and Roman belief, the genii were personal tutelar deities of human beings, assigned to each one at birth, attending him through life, and conducting him to Hades at death. This genius was honored by rites and sometimes deified. The word is also used, as genius loci, to mean the deity that presides over a locality or over some topographical feature. These are the ethereal, as distinguished from the corporeal, forces in nature.

The word genius is also applicable to the divine instructors of individuals and races; while with the Gnostics it stood for aeons or angels. Atom, in its original sense and not as denoting a particle, is equivalent to genius, for in this original sense it is equivalent to the theosophical term life-atom.

Compare this to the definition of the word 'jinn' from the same source:

In the Koran a class of beings, both male and female, between angels and human kind and represented as being created from smokeless fire, abounding particularly in desert places. Popularly jinn are regarded as being able to appear to mankind in the form of domestic animals or of human beings of gigantic size, the benevolent ones appearing in beautiful shape, the malevolent in horrible guise.

As Iblis in Islamic lore, the Watcher Azazel is said to be the father of all evil genii. Lilith, the first wife of Adam (that didn't quite work out) is said to be the mother of the djinn - particularly the efreet. I mention this, because of the association with genii or djinn to angels and tutelary deities. The Watchers (both good and bad ones) are the closest thing to tutelary deities in Hebrew and Christian lore. Also, recall that the Seraphim chora of angels, to which most of the chiefs of the Watchers belonged, are known as 'fiery serpents'. Ea/Enki is refered to as 'the Wise Serpent' or (in Hebrew) the nachash - which is very reminiscent of the word naga. So, here we have a tie-in between serpents and creatures of fire and Seraphim that is not a far stretch.

ANCIENT CITY DWELLERS

Danielou goes on to say that:

"The legend of the nagas appears to come from a mixture of elements, on one side the cult of serpents considered as the genii of trees and rivers and, on the other, memories of 'non-Aryan' clans who worshiped serpents....

"...The serpent seems to have been the totem of the ancient Dravidians, and until comparatively recent times there were dynasties of kings who were pictured with a cobra's hood in eastern and southern India."

He fails to mention another key element of the derivation of the name of this race. He describes their loka or world as being "an immense domain crowded with palaces, houses, towers, and pleasure gardens." In the areas of Gujarat in western India and further west and north in West Pakistan (early Harappan culture), pre-historic cultures have been found that indicated peoples that were living in high-walled towns for protection - similar to Ur, Uruk, Babylon and other Sumerian cities. Some of these towns pre-date Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (2500 - 1500 BC) by hundreds and possibly thousands of years. These walled towns are called nagar in Sanskrit and a person living in such a place was called a nagara or a city-dweller. These people were of an advanced culture compared to the 'savages' who continued to live at the mercy of the elements and jungles/forests. These nagara had knowledge of building techniques and were capable of setting up 'civic domains'. The fact that the nagas are also described as wearing jewelry, crowns and earrings would also indicate that they had knowledge of metallurgy and gemstones. These people would have seemed god-like and mysterious to those who lived outside their walls.

As he also indicates in the above quotation, the nagas were worshiped in particular by the Dravidians. It is generally accepted in certain circles that the name 'Dravid' is the source of the word 'Druid'. The Druids were known for their worship of trees and water, and their development of a 'tree alphabet' called Ogham (oh-ham). It is also considered that the story of St. Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland is a euphemism for driving the Druids (or serpents) out of Ireland. The nagas are also known to be 'magicians' and artificers.

LEGENDS FROM OTHER PLACES

Legends of serpent-people are not confined solely to India and Malaysia. The native people of the Americas also have naga legends and there is the Serpent Mound, built by the mysterious Mound Builders.

The Toltecs called Quetzalcoatl the Plumed or Feathered Serpent. Quetzalcoatl promised them that he would return to them one day in the future and sailed into the sunrise to return to Tolan or Tulan, his home.

The Hopi Indian tribe of the great American Southwest also believe that at the end of the fourth world, their 'true or elder white brother' Pahana will return to them, bearing a portion of a sacred tablet that will confirm his identity. One of the epithets of Pahana is 'Fire-hair' - which, if you are familiar with Amerind terminologies, indicates that this Pahana had red hair.

The name Pahana is very similar to the word 'Pani' which is what the Phoenicians were called when they lived in India. There is ample evidence of their being in India in the ancient Rig Veda. Due to the discovery of the city of Dwaraka, sunken off the coast of India in the 1980's, it is now accepted by many Hindu scholars that the war described in the Mahabharata actually took place and has been dated by experts to around 3100 BC. It is also now generally accepted that Krishna was an actual historical person. This means that the Rig Veda is significantly older than was previously thought - at least in terms of oral-tradition.

SO...?

Taking all this information and putting it together in my head (a dangerous place), everything keeps pointing back to some portion of the Pani or Phoenicians as the nagas, the asuras or anti-gods, and possibly the Watchers and Sumerian gods. These mariners were most definitely at home, on, in or near the water and all of their major settlements were at the water's edge. (Of course.) Rajeswar Gupta, who wrote the above linked Rig Veda article about the Panis says that they were not asuras but I don't happen to agree with him on that point. I don't know where he gets his information that the Pani claim to have been civilized for 30,000 years, but it seems tempting with my thoughts on the whereabouts of Atlantis and that mention of the stone-tool factory from my PLATO'S ATLANTIS page (repeated here for your convenience) to tie those things together:

"Stone age implements found in North Borneo (Sabah) at a site called Tingkayu have been dated back as far as 31,000 BC and are considered to be some of the finest examples (if not the finest) of their kind."

Mr. Gupta's article is written in a sufficiently sane and rational manner that tends to make me trust what he says. The things that can be proved from the Rig Veda itself are verifiable. I prefer to reduce the myth away and all the fabulousness of these early writings and put them into an human and historical frame. I try not to push things too far, although some people might think that I have. It's all speculation based on many different bits and pieces of information. I do try to check the validity of the information that I use, when it is possible to do so.

It is well-known that the Phoenicians were great craftsmen in wood, stone, metal, pottery, textiles and glass. They didn't just spring up out of nowhere with all these abilities and talents. They were honed and developed over a long period of time. Beautifully carved white marble sarcophagi that are described as the equivalent of Greek sculpture have been found in Sidon. Many of them are now on display in the Beruit National Museum. Unfortunately, I cannot find any pictures of them. This, added to the fact that the Phoenicians, by virtue of their skills, their 'dangerous' knowledge, their religious preferences (paganism) and their great success as merchants always eventually seemed to make them unpopular pariahs wherever they went. This very identical situation has reared it's head in our times, with the internecine battles going on in West Pakistan between the Hindus and the Moslems. It basically all boils down to the fact that the Hindus allowed the Moslems to live amongst them and the Moslems have become rich and prosperous there, from the Hindus. The argument over rebuilding Ayodhya temple is but a pretension to cover the true reason for the Hindus' hatred for the Moslems.

Related reading of interest:

Song of the Dragon - good article!
Flying Serpents and Dragons - disregard 95% of what the Editor says and just read the rest. This is part of a book about 'Reptoids', which I find as spurious and mentally entertaining as many of Sitchin's works, but the author does present some relevant points to what I've said above that are mostly 'known and accepted' facts.