Fergusson, James: History of Indian and Eastern architecture (Band 1) (London, 1910)

44

HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.

present in the temples of the Jains, and pervades the whole
religion of the Vaishnavas.1 In the great act of creation the
Naga performs the principal part in the churning of the ocean,
and in almost every representation of Vishnu he appears either
as supporting and watching over him, or as performing some
subsidiary part in the scene. It is, in fact, the Naga that
binds together and gives unity to this great group of religions,
and it is the presence of the Tree and Serpent worship under-
lying Buddhism, Jainism, and Vaishnavism that seems to prove
almost incontestably that there existed a people in the north
of India, whether we call them Dasyus, Kolarians, or by any
other name, who were Tree and Serpent worshippers, before
they adopted any of the later Hindu forms of faith. Nothing
can be more antagonistic to the thoughts and feelings of a pure
Aryan race than such forms of worship, and nothing more
completely ante-Vedic than its rites.2 We seem, then, almost
forced to assume that it was an aboriginal superstition in the
north of India, and it was the conversion of the people to
whom it belonged that gave rise to that triarchy of religions
that have competed with each other in the north during the
last two thousand years.

This solution of the difficulty has the further advantage that
it steps in at once clearly to explain what philology is only
dimly guessing at, though its whole tendency, as well as
that of ethnology, now seems in the same direction. If this
view of the mythology be correct, it seems certain that there
existed in the north of India, before the arrival of the Aryans,
a people whose affinities were all with the Tibetans, Burmese,
Siamese, and other trans - Himalayan populations, and who
were not Dravidians, though they may have been intimately
connected with one division at least of the inhabitants of
Ceylon.

Both the pre-Aryan races of India belonged to the

1 Snake worship may have been intro-
duced into the south frorn the north ;
and it has been remarked that snake
images are very frequent about Jaina
temples in Mysore and Kanara. At
Negapatam is a temple dedicated to
Naganath, and at Subrahmanya in South
Kanara, at Nagarkoil, at Manarchal in
Travankor, and elsewhere,are also snake
temples much resorted to. No Brahman
ever officiates in a Naga temple. See
also Thurston, ‘ Ethnographic Notes in
Southern India,’ 1906, pp. 283-293.

2 Though Aiva is always represented
with a black snake as one of his symbols

there does not seem to be any very close
connection between Snake worship and
Saivism, though there are some coinci-
dences that may point that way ; in
Kanara, Naga images are set up facing
the east, under the shade of two pipal
trees — a rnale and female growing
together and married with proper rites.
Beside them grow a margosa and bilva
tree as witnesses ; now these latter trees
are more or less consecrated to Aiva. On
the other hand no trace of Tree-worship
seems to be mingled with the various
forms of adoration paid to this divinity.
The tulasi or basil is sacred to Vishnu."