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Snake Worship 131
Naga or cobra, frequently seen on Indian sculptures, with
five, seven, nine, or more heads. Specimens of this snake
ornament may be seen in the Indian Department of the
South Kensington Museum.
Certain Indian families assert that they possess immunity
from snake-bite. General (afterwards Sir William) Sleeman,
in his Jotcntey through the Kingdom of Oucih, mentions
having been told by the Raja Tilokchand (whose family had
settled themselves in that State) that no member of the
family had ever been known to die from the effects of
snake-bite. He accounted for this by saying that they
were descended from Sdlbdhan, the rival and conqueror of
Bikramajit of Ujjain. Salbahan is fabled to have been a
lineal descendant of the snake god :
he was most probably
one of the leaders of the Scythian armies, who conquered
India in the reign of Vikramaditya in Malwa. The symbols
of the snake woman are by no means confined to Asia. On
Plate XVI, fig. 7, is a talisman called La Sircna, in use
amongst the lower classes at Naples at the present day.
I submit that a strong and decided family likeness exists
between the Tartar goddess (Plate XV, fig. i), the Naga
lady from Oudh, the Naga Mudamma of Maisiir, Kiya
LCime of Japan, and La Sirena of Naples, and that these
all had most probably a common origin in the remote past.
The Romans, too, would appear to have adopted into their
symbolism a figure with a female bust, its lower extremity
being that of a fish or a serpent. The object in the hand
of the Tartar goddess has been by some supposed to
denote the connection of this type of figure with Saiva
worship. It bears no very remote resemblance to one of