Novella of Indian Mythology

Nagas  Traced Back to their Origin

You are willing to let me be some….someone’s servant….Look at you , Having sons like you…it is better…..that I did not have any children…I CURSE YOU! You all would die in a Snake Sacrifice….’ Kadru yelled.

Kadru was the daughter of Prajpati Dakksha, guardian of the world .Thirteen Daughters of the Daksha was married to sage Kashyapa. Sage Kashyapa is considered to be the father of all living creatures of this Universe be it demons, gods, animals.

Kadru was one of the wives of Kashyapa and had sour relationship with his sister Vinata. Kadru always tried to demean Vinata. Both of them perform Yagas to bear children. After performing it for thousands of years, it was the time for result. Kadru as being hateful towards the Vinata asked for thousands sons who would be very strong and powerful while Vinata being gentle and calm asked for two sons who would be more powerful than the thousands sons of kadru. This ignited Kadru very much and now she was  more jealous of  Vinata.

After some time Kadru bore thousands of eggs and while Vinata bore only two. Some hundreds of years after, thousands eggs of Kadru hatched and from these came thousand snakes among which most prominent ones are:

1. Shesha

2. Vasuki

3. Takshak

Vinata got desperate that her eggs hadn’t hatched till them.She in haste broke one egg from which came Aruna, a half formed child who was as radiant and reddish as the morning sun. But, due to the premature breaking of the egg, Aruna was not as bright as the noon sun as he was promised to be. Arunabeing upset about it cursed his mother that she had to serve someone else for some hundreds of years. This made Vinata realized her mistakes and let other egg hatched on its due time. From it came, Garuda who finally became the consort of lord Vishnu.

One day when Vinata and Kadru were roaming around; saw the Uchchaihshravas, the beautiful seven headed white horse that was churned out of the ocean of Milk (Shir Sagar). Then after going back home; Kadru placed a bet and asked Vinata to tell the color of the tail of  Uchchaihshravas. The bet was whoever lost it had to serve the other. Vinata replied the colour being white.

Now Kadru being aware that color of the horse, Uchchaihshravas was indeed snow white and its tail too was of white color. He gathered his sons asked them to wrap around the tail of  Uchchaihshravas to make it appear black so that when Vinata and she would go to find out the color of  Uchchaihshravas next day, Vinata would lose the bet.

Shesha being elder and spiritual told her mother that this is sin and he would not be a party to this. This irked Kadru as his sons were not supporting him and in haste  yelled those words mentioned in the first sentence of the post.

Nagas could not believe what they heard that their mother had herself gifted them death. This create fear among them and all of them agreed to what their mother demand except shesha, whose heart was filled with sorrow and this situation had created separation between the hearts of her mother and him and then he went to mountain to perform ‘Tapasya’ .

Next day when Vinata and kadru went to see the tail of  Uchchaihshravas ,the sons of Kadru was already wrapped neatly around the tail of  Uchchaihshravas making it appear black. Thus Vinata lost the bet and had to be servant to kadru .Thus, the curse of his son, Aruna came to realization.

We will talk about the nagas in some other post among whom most prominent ones are shesha who ultimately became the resting place of Lord Vishnu and while Vashuki became the ornament that Lord Shiva wore.