Note 17 — Chapter XXXIV

i. e. Nágavana. For serpent-worship see Tylor’s Primitive Culture, Vol. II, pp. 217–220. The author of Sagas from the Far East remarks; “Serpent-Cultus was of very ancient observance, and is practised by both followers of Bráhmanism and Buddhism. The Bráhmans seem to have desired to show their disapproval of it by placing the serpent-gods in the lower ranks of their mythology, (Lassen. I, 707 and 544, n. 2). This cultus, however, seems to have received a fresh development about the time of Aśoka circa 250 B. C. (Vol. II, p. 467). When Madhyantika went into Cashmere and Gandhára to teach Buddhism after the holding of the third synod, it is mentioned that he found sacrifices to serpents practised there (II. 234, 235). There is a passage in Plutarch from which it appears to have been the custom to sacrifice an old woman (previously condemned to death for some crime) to the serpent-gods by burying her alive on the banks of the Indus (II. 467, note 4) Ktesias also mentions the serpent worship (II. 642). In Buddhist legends serpents are often mentioned as protecting patrons of certain towns. (Sagas from the Far East, p. 355). See also Mr. F. S. Growse’s Mathurá memoir, p. 71.