African mythology , important in
African and
African-American religions In Africa the chief centre of serpent worship was
Dahomey, but the cult of the python seems to have been of exotic origin, dating back to the first quarter of the 17th century. By the conquest of
Whydah the Dahomeyans were brought in contact with a people of serpent worshipers, and ended by adopting from them the beliefs which they at first despised. At
Whydah, the chief centre, there is a serpent temple, tenanted by some fifty snakes. Every python of the
danh-gbi kind must be treated with respect, and death is the penalty for killing one, even by accident.
Danh-gbi has numerous wives, who until 1857 took part in a public procession from which the profane crowd was excluded; a python was carried round the town in a hammock, perhaps as a ceremony for the expulsion of evils. The rainbow-god of the
Ashanti was also conceived to have the form of a snake. His messenger was said to be a small variety of
boa, but only certain individuals, not the whole species, were sacred. The
Yoruba people also shared a similar view of their rainbow
deity,
Oshunmare. In many parts of Africa the serpent is looked upon as the incarnation of deceased relatives. Among the
amaZulu, as among the
Betsileo of Madagascar, certain species are assigned as the abode of certain classes. The
Maasai, on the other hand, regard each species as the habitat of a particular family of the tribe.
Ancient Near East " with the dragon
Mushussu, dedicated to
Ningishzida (twentieth century BCE
short chronology). The
caduceus is interpreted as depicting the god himself. Representations of two intertwined serpents are common in
Sumerian art and Neo-Sumerian artwork one at
Gezer, one in the
sanctum sanctorum of the Area H temple at
Hazor, and two at
Shechem. In the surrounding region, serpent cult objects figured in other cultures. A late Bronze Age
Hittite shrine in northern Syria contained a bronze statue of a god holding a serpent in one hand and a staff in the other. In 6th-century
Babylon, a pair of bronze serpents flanked each of the four doorways of the temple of
Esagila. At the Babylonian New Year's festival, the priest was to commission from a woodworker, a metalworker and a goldsmith two images, one of which "shall hold in its left hand a snake of cedar, raising its right [hand] to the god
Nabu". At the tell of Tepe Gawra, at least seventeen Early Bronze Age
Assyrian bronze serpents were recovered.
Bronze and Iron Age United Arab Emirates pot from
Rumailah,
Al Ain Significant finds of pottery, bronze-ware and even gold depictions of snakes have been made throughout the
United Arab Emirates (UAE). The
Bronze Age and
Iron Age metallurgical centre of
Saruq Al Hadid has yielded probably the richest trove of such objects, although finds have been made bearing snake symbols in Bronze Age sites at
Rumailah,
Bithnah and
Masafi. Most of the depictions of snakes are similar, with a consistent dotted decoration applied to them. Although the widespread depiction of snakes in sites across the UAE is thought by archaeologists to have a religious purpose, this remains conjecture.
Abrahamic Religions Jewish beliefs ) In the
Hebrew Bible the serpent in the
Garden of Eden lured Eve with the promise of being like God, tempting her that despite God's warning, death would not be the result, that God was withholding knowledge from her. The staff of
Moses transformed into a snake and then back into a staff (
Exodus 4:2–4). The
Book of Numbers 21:6–9 provides an origin for an
archaic copper serpent, Nehushtan, by associating it with Moses. This copper snake according to the Biblical text is put on a pole and used for healing. Book of Numbers 21:9 "And Moses made a snake of copper, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a snake had bitten any man, when he beheld the snake of brass, he lived." When the reformer
King Hezekiah came to the throne of Judah in the late 8th century BCE, "He removed the high places, broke the sacred pillars, smashed the idols, and broke into pieces the copper snake that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. ()
Christian beliefs In the
Gospel of John 3:14–15, Jesus makes direct comparison between the raising up of the
Son of Man and the act of Moses in raising up the serpent as a sign, using it as a symbol associated with
salvation: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
eternal life". Christian Tradition also identifies
Satan as a talking serpent in the Old Testament's
Garden of Eden who had tempted Eve with a fruit from the
Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve, as well as her consort Adam, were then punished by
YHWH for their disobedience to commandments outlined prior to this; had lifespan decreased, for women to suffer in birthing, as well as other torments. Snake imagery also appears when the Israelites speak against Moses and God sends poisonous snakes down to bite them. When they repent and Moses prayed for them, God told Moses to make a snake of bronze and put it on a pole and all who were bitten by the snakes could look at it and be healed The Arabian Flying Snakes, also known as
Arabhar, are a part of Arabian folklore and are said to live near the Arabian Sea. These snakes are believed to have the ability to fly, and their name "Arabhar" means "Arab snake." The Islamic serpent generally follows in the tradition of earlier Abrahamic myths as a symbol for the seductive draw of wisdom. This symbolism is reflected in various stories and parables, such as the tale of the snake-catcher and the serpent from
Rumi, which uses the serpent as a symbol for the sensual soul within human beings. Another story from Arabian mythology features the giant serpent
Falak, which is said to live below the fish known as Bahamut and is mentioned in the
One Thousand and One Nights as a dangerous monster. It is said that Falak only fears God's greater power, which prevents it from consuming all of creation.
Ancient Iran from
Shahdad, Iran, 2700 BC Serpents are sacred and powerful in the thought of prehistoric
cultures of Iran, having been portrayed as patrons of fertility, water and wealth in the ancient objects of Iran. They seem to have been worshipped along with the
fertility goddesses from the fourth to first millennia BC, when their presence as mighty patrons and source of life and of immortality is seen in the art of
Tall-i Bakun,
Chogha Mish,
Tepe Sialk,
Jiroft culture,
Shahr-e Sukhteh,
Shahdad,
Elamite art,
Luristan art, etc. However, it seems that the symbolic concept of the serpent was corrupted in the cultures of the
Iranian plateau over time by Western influence. In
Abrahamic traditions, the serpent represents sexual desire, as he lured
Eve with the promise of forbidden knowledge in the
Garden of Eden. As a result of such influence, Aryan religions call the serpents diabolic;
Azhi Dahake in the
Avesta is a scary serpent, and
Zahhak in the
Shahnameh is an infernal creature with two snakes on his shoulders. This replacement might be due to communication between the inhabitants of Iran and believers in
Abrahamic religions, and beyond that the conversion of
matriarchy into
patriarchy as the social structure of Iranian plateau cultures.
Chinese mythology In Chinese creationism mythology,
Nüwa is the mother goddess who created humans from clay. She is depicted as a half snake being.
Greek mythology Gorgon at the
pediment of the
Temple of Artemis as shown at the
Archaeological Museum of Corfu. She wears a belt of intertwined snakes, a fertility symbol. The
Minoan Snake Goddess brandished a serpent in either hand, perhaps evoking her role as source of wisdom, rather than her role as Mistress of the Animals (
Potnia Theron), with a
leopard under each arm. Serpents figured prominently in archaic Greek myths. According to some sources,
Ophion ("serpent", a.k.a. Ophioneus), ruled the world with Eurynome before the two of them were cast down by
Cronus and
Rhea. The oracles of the Ancient Greeks were said to have been the continuation of the tradition begun with the worship of the Egyptian cobra goddess
Wadjet.
Typhon, the enemy of the
Olympian gods, is described as a vast grisly monster with a hundred heads and a hundred serpents issuing from his thighs, who was conquered and cast into
Tartarus by
Zeus, or confined beneath volcanic regions, where he is the cause of eruptions. Typhon is thus the chthonic figuration of volcanic forces. Serpent elements figure among his offspring; among his children by Echidna are
Cerberus (a monstrous three-headed dog with a snake for a tail and a serpentine mane); the serpent-tailed
Chimaera; the serpent-like chthonic water beast
Lernaean Hydra; and the hundred-headed serpentine dragon
Ladon. Both the Lernaean Hydra and Ladon were slain by
Heracles.
Python was the earth-dragon of
Delphi. She always was represented in the vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent. Python was the chthonic enemy of
Apollo, who slew her and remade her former home his own oracle, the most famous in Classical Greece. The
Gorgons -
Stheno,
Euryale, and
Medusa - were three monstrous sisters with sharp fangs and living, venomous snakes for hair, and whose origins predate the written myths of Greece and who were the protectors of the most ancient ritual secrets. The Gorgons wore a belt of two intertwined serpents in the same configuration of the
caduceus. The Gorgon was placed at the center, highest point of one of the pediments on the
Temple of Artemis at Corfu.
Asclepius, the son of Apollo and
Coronis, learned the secrets of keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another (which Asclepius himself had fatally wounded) back to life with healing herbs. To prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal under Asclepius's care, Zeus killed him with a bolt of lightning. Asclepius' death at the hands of Zeus illustrates man's inability to challenge the natural order that separates mortal men from the gods. In honor of Asclepius, snakes were often used in healing rituals. Non-poisonous snakes were left to crawl on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. The
Bibliotheca claimed that
Athena gave Asclepius a vial of blood from the Gorgons. Gorgon blood had magical properties: if taken from the left side of the Gorgon, it was a fatal poison; from the right side, the blood was capable of bringing the dead back to life. However,
Euripides wrote in his tragedy
Ion that the Athenian queen
Creusa had inherited this vial from her ancestor
Erichthonios, who was a snake himself and had received the vial from Athena. In this version the blood of Medusa had the healing power while the lethal poison originated from Medusa's serpents.
Olympias, the mother of
Alexander the Great and a princess of the primitive land of
Epirus, had the reputation of a snake-handler, and it was in serpent form that Zeus was said to have fathered Alexander upon her.
Aeëtes, the king of
Colchis and father of the sorceress
Medea, possessed the
Golden Fleece. He guarded it with a massive serpent that never slept. Medea, who had fallen in love with
Jason of the
Argonauts, enchanted it to sleep so Jason could seize the Fleece. (See
Lamia). When not driven by horses, the chariot of the
Greek sun god is described as being pulled by fiery draconic beings. The most notable instance of this is observed in the episode in which
Medea is given her grandfather's chariot, which is pulled by serpents through the sky. In artwork snakes are occasionally associated with
Hecate, the goddess of
witchcraft.
Hindu mythology sculpture of a Naga couple,
Halebidu Naga (
Sanskrit: नाग) is the
Sanskrit/
Pāli word for a deity or class of entity or being, taking the form of a very large snake, found in
Hinduism,
Buddhism, and
Jainism. The
naga primarily represents rebirth, death and mortality, due to its casting of its skin and being symbolically "reborn". Hindus associate the
naga with the deities
Shiva and
Vishnu.
Shesha is one of the two mounts of Vishnu, upon which the deity rests.
Vasuki is a serpent coiled around the neck of Shiva. The snake represents freedom in
Hindu mythology because they cannot be tamed. In Buddhism, the serpent
Mucalinda is associated as the protector of
Buddha. In Jainism, serpent is associated with the 23rd Tirthankara
Parshvanatha.
Hindu symbolism In Hindu mythology, serpents (
Nāgas) are considered powerful semi-divine beings associated with
water, fertility, and the underworld. Nāgas are also linked to
cosmic energy (Kundalini) and feature prominently in astrology as the basis for
Rahu and Ketu, the lunar nodes representing karmic influences and eclipse-causing shadow planets.
Nagas of Indochina Serpents, or
nāgas, play a particularly important role in
Khmer mythology. An
origin myth explains the emergence of the name "Cambodia" as resulting from conquest of a naga princess by a
Kambuja lord named
Kaundinya: the descendants of their union are the
Khmer people.
George Cœdès suggests the Cambodian myth is a basis for the Thai legend of
"Phra Daeng Nang Ai", in which a woman who has lived many previous lives in the region is reincarnated as a daughter of Phraya Khom (Thai for Cambodian) and causes the death of her companion in former lives who has been reincarnated as a prince of the Nagas. This leads to war between the "spirits of the air" and the Nagas: Nagas amok are rivers in spate, and the entire region is flooded.
The Myth of the Toad King tells how introduction of Buddhist teachings led to war with the
sky deity Phaya Thaen, and ended in a truce with nagas posted as guardians of entrances to temples.
Native American mythology Some
Native American tribes give reverence to the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes who is able to give fair winds or cause tempest. Among the
Hopi of
Arizona the serpent figures largely in one of the dances. The rattlesnake was worshiped in the
Natchez Temple of the Sun, and the
Aztec deity
Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent-god. In many Meso-American cultures, the serpent was regarded as a portal between two worlds. The tribes of
Peru are said to have adored great snakes in the pre-Inca days, and in
Chile the
Mapuche made a serpent figure in their deluge beliefs. A
Horned Serpent is a popular image in Northern American natives' mythology. In one Native North American story, an evil serpent kills one of the gods' cousins, so the god kills the serpent in revenge, but the dying serpent unleashes a great flood. People first flee to the mountains and then, when the mountains are covered, they float on a raft until the flood subsides. The evil spirits that the serpent god controlled then hide out of fear. The
Mound Builders associated great mystical value to the serpent, as the
Serpent Mound demonstrates, though we are unable to unravel the particular associations.
Nordic mythology Jörmungandr, alternately referred to as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent, is a
sea serpent of
Norse mythology, the middle child of
Loki and the
giantess Angrboða. According to the
Prose Edda,
Odin took Loki's three children,
Fenrisúlfr,
Hel and Jörmungandr. He tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles
Midgard. The serpent grew so big that he was able to surround the
Earth and grasp his own tail, and as a result he earned the alternate name of the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent. Jörmungandr's arch enemy is the god
Thor. In the
Poetic Edda, Odin tells of eight serpents gnawing on the roots of
Yggdrasil:
Nidhöggr, Gravvitnir, Moin, Goin, Grábakr, Grafvölluðr, Svafnir and Ofnir. ==Folklore==