Note 129 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.
Reading edition
The great snake festival is the Nâgpanchamî, or “Dragon’s fifth,” held on the fifth day of the month of Bhâdon. In the Hills it is called the Rikhî or Birurî Panchamî. Rikheswara has now become a title of Siva as lord of the Nâgas, a form in which he is represented as surrounded by serpents and crowned with the chaplet of hooded snakes. On the day of the feast the people paint figures of serpents and birds on the walls of their houses, and seven days before the festival they steep a mixture of wheat, gram, and pulse in water. On the morning of the feast they take a wisp of grass, tie it up in the form of a snake, dip it in the water in which the gram has been steeped, and offer it with money and sweetmeats to the serpents.129