Note 108 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.

But all such snakes are not friendly. In the Hitopadesa, the faithful mungoose takes the place in the legend of Bethgelert of the hound and kills the deadly snake. Some reference to this famous folk-tale will be made in another connection. Aghâsura, “the evil demon,” the king of the serpents, tried to devour the divine infant Krishna. When he and his foster-father Nanda were asleep together, a huge boa-constrictor laid hold of Nanda by the toe, and would speedily have devoured him, but Krishna, hearing his cries, ran to his side and lightly set his foot on the monster’s head. At the very touch the serpent was transformed, and assumed the figure of a lovely youth; “for years ago a Ganymede of Heaven’s Court, by name Sudarsana, in pride of beauty and exalted birth, had vexed the holy sage Angiras when in deep contemplation, by dancing backwards and forwards before him, and by his curses had been metamorphosed into a snake, in that vile shape to expiate his offence, until the advent of Krishna.”108 We have already spoken of another famous Mathura snake, the Nâga of Jait, whose tail is supposed to reach underground to Brindaban, seven miles away.109 The curious dragon cave at Kausambhi at Allahâbâd was one of the last notable discoveries of the Archæological Survey.110