Afterwards, when the two Nāgayās were conversing, the elder Nāgayā said, “Our grandfather’s palace, indeed, is this. Because of it, indeed, to-day I danced, creating a thousand hoods. From to-day I shall not dance again.”
Well then, the two, creating divine bodies, having gone to the midst of the forest, practised asceticism.
North-western Province.
In The Jātaka, No. 543 (vol. vi, p. 83) there is an account of a tortoise (turtle) that frightened the semi-Nāga sons of Brahmadatta, King of Benares, by raising its head out of the water of the royal pool when they were playing there. When it was netted the attendants suggested pounding it to powder in a mortar, or cooking and eating it, or baking it; and at last a Minister recommended that it should be thrown into the whirlpool of the Yamunā river. The turtle begged to be spared this last fate,—the one it desired,—but the King ordered it to be thrown into the river, in which a current led it to the dwelling of the Nāgas. When the sons of the Nāga King Dhataraṭṭha found it, the turtle invented the story of its being a messenger called Cittacūḷa, sent by the King of Benares to offer his daughter to the Nāga King. Four Nāga youths returned with the turtle to fix the wedding day, the turtle concealing itself in a pool on the way, on the plea of collecting lotus flowers. When the Nāgas were treated with scorn, the Nāga King and his forces compelled the King to surrender his daughter Samuddajā, who was married to the Nāga King.
Her second semi-Nāga son out of four with only his Nāga wife’s knowledge went to fast on the earth, with a view to being re-born among the Gods. Lying as a cobra on an ant-hill he was pointed out by an outcast Brāhmaṇa, captured by means of a magical spell, taken to dance in villages, and at last brought to the King of Benares. The Nāga’s eldest brother disguised as an ascetic, with his Nāga sister, disguised as a young frog that was hidden in his hair, rescued him. The heat from three drops of poison emitted by the frog turned the snake charmer into a leper; their virulence, had it not been magically quenched, would have caused a seven years’ drought.
Snake doctors in Ceylon classify the frog as a very poisonous form of serpent. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 213, a gold frog was the daughter of the Serpent King, who may have been a Nāga.
In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 188, the story resembles that given in the Jātaka tale. The King’s name was Aṅgada; he had a son and a daughter Añjanā. When the turtle was caught the Ministers advised beheading it, burning it alive, or chopping it up and making it into soup; another said these deaths were not cruel enough, and recommended casting it into the sea; it was thrown into a river. The Nāga’s parents, sister, and brother sought for it in the form of birds, and the snake charmer was sent away by Aṅgada, with presents.
In the same work, vol. iii, p. 346, a Queen bore a human son after being visited by a great serpent while half asleep. Professor Chavannes referred to other early instances of such supposed births.
In the Kolhān folk-tales (Bompas) appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 452, there is an account of a woman who was married to a water-snake and lived with him under the water, where she bore four snake sons.