Sometimes, it is said, it may be considered necessary to rub away the figure as many as one hundred and one times, in which case the ceremony is prolonged over several weeks. Each time that the snake design is destroyed, one or two men, with torches in their hands, perform a dance, keeping step to the Pulluvan’s music. The family may eventually erect a small platform or shrine in a corner of their grounds, and worship at it annually. The snake deity will not, it is believed, manifest himself if any of the persons or articles required for the ceremony are impure, e.g., if the pot-drum has been polluted by the touch of a menstruating female. The Pulluvan, from whom a drum was purchased for the Madras Museum, was very reluctant to part with it, lest it should be touched by an impure woman. In addition to the pot-drum, the Pulluvans play on a lute with snakes painted on the reptile skin, which is used in lieu of parchment. The skin, in a specimen which I acquired, is apparently that of the big lizard Varanus bengalensis. The lute is played with a bow, to which a metal bell is attached.
In the “Madras Census Report,” 1871,[17] Surgeon-Major Cornish states that there is a place near Vaisarpadi, close to Madras, in which the worship of the living snakes draws crowds of votaries, who make holiday excursions to the temple, generally on Sundays, in the hope of seeing the snakes, which are preserved in the temple grounds; and, he adds, probably as long as the desire of offspring is a leading characteristic of the Indian people, so long will the worship of the serpent, or of snake-stones, be a popular cult. He describes further how, at Rajahmundry in the Telugu country, he came across an old ant-hill by the side of a public road, on which was placed a stone representing a cobra, and the ground all round was stuck over with pieces of wood carved very rudely in the shape of a snake. These were the offerings left by devotees at the abode taken up by an old snake, who would occasionally come out of his hole, and feast on the eggs and ghī (clarified butter) left for him by his adorers. Around this place he saw many women who had come to pray at the shrine. If they chanced to see the cobra, the omen was interpreted favourably, and their prayers for progeny would be granted. >
Concerning snake worship in the Tamil country, Mr W. Francis writes as follows[18]:—
“A vow is taken by childless wives to install a serpent (nāgapratishtai), if they are blessed with offspring. The ceremony consists in having a figure of a serpent cut in a stone slab, placing it in a well for six months, giving it life (prānapratishtai) by reciting mantrams and performing other ceremonies over it, and then setting it up under a pīpal tree (Ficus religiosa), which has been married to a margosa (Melia Azadirachta). Worship, which consists mainly in going round the tree 108 times, is then performed to it for the next forty-five days. Similar circumambulations will also bring good luck in a general way, if carried out subsequently.”
It is further recorded by Mr F. R. Hemingway[19] that, “Brāhmans and the higher Vellālans think that children can be obtained by worshipping the cobra. Vellālans and Kallans perform the worship on a Friday. Among the Vellālans, this is generally after the Pongal festival. The Vellālans make an old woman cry aloud in the backyard that a sacrifice will be made to the cobra next day, and that they pray it will accept the offering. At the time of sacrifice, cooked jaggery (crude sugar) and rice, burning ghī in the middle of rice-flour, and an egg, are offered to the cobra, and left in the backyard for its acceptance. The Pallis annually worship the cobra by pouring milk on an ant-hill, and sacrificing a fowl near it. Valaiyans, Pallans, and Paraiyans sacrifice a fowl in their own backyards.”
In the Tamil country, children whose birth is attributed to a vow taken by childless mothers to offer a snake cut on a stone slab, sometimes have a name bearing reference to snakes given to them, i.e., Sēshāchalam,[20] Sēshamma, Nāgappa, or Nāgamma. Nāga, Nāgasa, or Nāgēswara, occurs as the name of a totemistic exogamous sept or gōtra of various classes in Ganjam and Vizagapatam. In the Odiya caste of farmers in Ganjam, members of the Nāgabonso sept claim to be descendants of Nāgamuni, the serpent rishi. Nāgavadam (cobra’s hood) is the name of a subdivision of the Tamil Pallis, who wear an ornament called nāgavadam, representing a cobra, in the dilated lobes of the ears.
Ant (i.e., white-ant, Termes) hills, which have been repeatedly referred to in this chapter, are frequently inhabited by cobras, and offerings of milk, fruit, and flowers are consequently made to them on certain ceremonial occasions. Thus it is recorded,[21] by the Rev. J. Cain that when he was living in Ellore Fort in the Godāvari district, in September, 1873, “a large crowd of people, chiefly women and children, came in, and visited every white-ant hill, poured upon each their offerings of milk, flowers, and fruit, to the intense delight of all the crows in the neighbourhood. The day was called the Nāgula Chaturdhi—Chaturdhi, the fourth day of the eighth lunar month—and was said to be the day when Vāsuki, Takshakā, and the rest of the thousand Nāgulu were born to Kasyapa Brahma by his wife Kadruva.[22] The other chief occasions when these ant-hills are resorted to are when people are affected with earache or pains in the eye, and certain skin diseases. They visit the ant-hills, pour out milk, cold rice, fruit, etc., and carry away part of the earth, which they apply to the troublesome member, and, if they afterwards call in a Brāhman to repeat a mantra or two, they feel sure the complaint will soon vanish. Many parents first cut their children’s hair near one of these hillocks, and offer the first fruits of the hair to the serpents residing there.”
The colossal Jain figure of Gomatēsvara, Gummatta, or Gomata Rāya, at Srāvana Belgola in Mysore,[23] is represented as surrounded by white-ant hills, from which snakes are emerging, and with a climbing plant twining itself round the legs and arms.
On the occasion of the snake festival in the Telugu country, the Bōya women worship the Nāgala Swāmi (snake god) by fasting, and pouring milk into the holes of white-ant hills. By this a double object is fulfilled. The ant-hill is a favourite dwelling of the cobra, and was, moreover, the burial-place of Valmīki, from whom the Bōyas claim to be descended. Valmīki was the author of the Rāmāyana, and is believed to have done penance for so long in one spot that a white-ant hill grew up round him. On the Nāgarapanchami day, Lingāyats worship the image of a snake made of earth from a snake’s hole with offerings of milk, rice, cocoanuts, flowers, etc. During the month Aswija, Lingāyat girls collect earth from ant-hills, and place it in a heap at the village temple. Every evening they go there with wave-offerings, and worship the heap. At the Dipāvali festival,[24] the Gamallas (Telugu toddy-drawers) bathe in the early morning, and go in wet clothes to an ant-hill, before which they prostrate themselves, and pour a little water into one of the holes. Round the hill they wind five turns of cotton thread, and return home. Subsequently they come once more to the ant-hill with a lamp made of flour paste. Carrying the light, they go three or five times round the hill, and throw split pulse (Phaseolus Mungo) into one of the holes. On the following morning they again go to the hill, pour milk into it, and snap the threads wound round it.
The famous temple of Subramanya in South Canara is said to have been in charge of the Subramanya Stānikas (temple servants), till it was wrested from them by the Shivalli Brāhmans. In former times, the privilege of sticking a golden ladle into a heap of food piled up in the temple on the Shasti day is said to have belonged to the Stānikas. They also brought earth from an ant-hill on the previous day. Food from the heap, and some of the earth, are received as sacred articles by devotees who visit the sacred shrine.