Ohio History Journal

THE NAGA AND THE LINGAM OF INDIA AND THE

SERPENT MOUNDS OF OHIO.

 

BY ALEXANDER S. WILSON, M. D.,

Kodaikanal, Madura District, India.

 

WITH INTRODUCTION BY G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.

 

INTRODUCTION.

About the middle of the last century Mr. Lewis

Morgan, a distinguished citizen of Rochester, New

York, became interested in the manner of reckoning

family relationships among the Iroquois Indians of cen-

tral New York. The system was very complicated and

complete. As many as 237 relationships were expressed.

The system was totally different from that prevalent

among the Anglo Saxons and affiliated races. The

Anglo Saxons limit themselves to tracing direct relation-

ships, son, grandson, great grandson, father, grand-

father, great grandfather, etc. But the Iroquois system

was that of clan relationships. As illustrating the com-

plication of the Iroquois system we note that in it

"mother's mother's mother's sister's daughter's daugh-

ter (older than myself)" is regarded as my elder

sister. "My mother's mother's mother's sister's daugh-

ter's daughter's daughter's daughter is regarded as my

daughter." Examination showed that this system was

essentially the same as that of other tribes of North

American Indians.

In 1859 Mr. Morgan happend to meet Dr. Henry

W. Scudder, for a long time missionary of the Presby-

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The Naga and Lingam of India.      79

terian church among the Tamils of southern India. On

seeing this classificatory system of relationships among

the Iroquois, Dr. Scudder said that it was almost identi-

cal with that in use among the Tamils of India, and that

the correspondences were so many and so peculiar that

there must be a connection somewhere in the past be-

tween these now widely separated tribes. In short they

had descended in prehistoric times from a common

center. Whereupon Mr. Morgan began a series of in-

vestigations under the patronage of the Smithsonian

Institution of Washington and collected from tribes and

societies all over the world the facts concerning the reck-

oning of relationships among both the Aryans who fol-

lowed the direct lines and the Turanian races who were

organized into clans. The great work was published as

"Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," 218, in

1871; and was entitled "Systems of Consanguinity and

Affinity of the Human Family," forming a volume of

nearly 600 quarto pages, full of tables giving the differ-

ent systems enumerated, with appropriate descriptive

matter. The result of the work in Mr. Morgan's opinion

fully confirmed the inference of Dr. Scudder, that the

American Indians and the Tamils of southern India

had, in prehistoric times, occupied common ground and

from that center had carried with them their peculiar

classificatory system of expressing consanguinity. So

that, after all, Columbus was not so much mistaken in

calling the inhabitatnts of America Indians.

It is interesting to note that now, after the lapse of

half a century, one of the successors of Dr. Scudder in

the missionary work among the Tamils comes to a repre-

sentative of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical So-

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80      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. ciety to say that two of their most highly valued archae- ological relics, the serpent mounds of Adams and War- ren counties, give incontestable evidence from another source that there must have been a prehistoric connec- tion between the mound builders of Ohio and the Tamils of southern India. The Ohio serpent mounds represent a class of serpents that did not exist in America but are

superabundant in India and worshipped by the inhabi- tants in great detail. Dr. Wilson's article must speak for itself. THE NAGA AND LINGAM OF INDIA AND THE SERPENT MOUNDS OF OHIO. (BY DR. WILSON.) India is often spoken of as the most religious coun- try in the world, and enjoys the unique distinction of

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The Naga and Lingam of India.      81 having actually more gods than people within her bor- ders, though her population, by the last census, is well over three hundred million. The reason for this lies in the fact that, with the decline of Buddhism about the sixth century A. D., Brahmanism reasserted its supremacy, and in the grand rennaisance which fol-

lowed, succeeded in blending all of the previous religious systems of India into one, without throwing out any of the deities, or giving serious offense to their devotees. This compound-complex combination is modern Hindu- ism. But, among all its millions of gods, probably none is more ancient than the Naga, the hooded cobra (Cobra Vol. XXX- 6.

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82      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

di Capello), a venomous snake averaging about four

feet in length, and found everywhere over the whole

land. Its bite accounts for thousands of deaths every

year, but so sacred is it, that no Hindu would think of

killing it. On the contrary, offerings of milk are poured

into the holes in the ground where it is known to dwell,

and it is shown every courtesy and consideration. Cobra

worship was undoubtedly practiced by the aborigines,

long before the Arayan invasion. The serpent has

figured prominently in the animistic religions of all

races, and is found in the mythologies of all lands.

Even the casual traveller is impressed by the num-

ber of shrines to the cobra-god, and it is safe to say that

scarcely a temple in India is without this decoration, no

matter to what major deity it may have been erected.

And what is equally striking is that with an abundance

of material to serve as living models for the artists,

the representations one sees are of a very conventional

type, with oftentimes very little attention to the char-

acteristic markings of the original. Compare, for in-

stance, the cobras shown in the following photographs

of Indian jugglers, with the sculptured Nagas. In the

first picture are two cobras in baskets, with their heads

raised and hoods spread. The one to the right shows

plainly the characteristic "spectacle" mark on the back

of the hood, conferred on him as a special mark of

honor by the great god Brahm. In the second picture,

two cobras are shown, one of them, in part-profile. The

third picture shows an ordinary Naga shrine by the road-

side. These are found by the thousand in India, and the

twined cobras represented are of a very conventional

type.

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84      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

The fourth picture shows three types of figures. On

the left, the twined Nagas, as in the previous picture.

In the center, two Nagas inclose between them the form

of a god or goddess, their hoods blending in one, along

the margin of which are five heads. At the right, there

is one serpent, with one hood, and seven heads. The

point I wish to emphasize is the wide departure from the

original, in a land swarming with cobras. This is shown

also in the fifth photograph of figures cut in the face of

a cliff. In the center above, is a Naga whose enormous

hood, with seven heads, shelters a god, while below, a

goddess is protected by a hood which seems to have but

three heads.

Probably from the same aboriginal source as Naga

worship, and of equal antiquity and sanctity, is the wor-

ship of the lingam, the deification of the reproductive

organs, usually of the male but sometimes of the female

also. Max Mueller euphemistically speaks of this as

the veneration of creative power in nature. Here too

Hindu art uses a purely conventional form. Millions

of followers of this cult keep their god with them night

and day, in a small metal box, worn suspended from the

neck by a string. In the box is a small disc of stone,

with a slightly rounded elevation on one of its flat sur-

faces. The figures in the shrines, however, are usually

more elaborate. At one of the most holy places in South

India, is a shrine, which is visited annually by hundreds

of thousands of worshippers. And there we find that

the lingam, represented by a short column of stone, is

sheltered and protected by the widespread hood of a

huge Naga, and the hood is bordered by five heads.

This is well shown in the sixth photograph.

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86      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

Much has been done to establish a common origin

for the American Indians and the Dravidians of South

India. There are said to be many striking language

similarities; but that the strongest resemblance is in the

constitution of the family group. I believe that in the

monuments left by the Mound Builders in Ohio we have

another very strong link in this chain of evidence. It

is hard to conceive of the two great serpent mounds

found respectively in Adams and Warren Counties as

having been constructed from other than religious mo-

tives. It is impossible to think of them as works of de-

fense, or constructed for any utilitarian purpose. The

mound in Adams County is particularly striking. Of

it the Encyclopedia Brittanica says, "It is a gigantic

serpent made in earth. Across the widely-opened jaws it

measures seventy-five feet; the body just behind the

head measures thirty feet across and is five feet high;

and, following the curves, the length is one thousand

three hundred and forty-eight feet. The tail is a triple

coil. In front of the monster is an elliptical inclosure

with a heap of stones at its center."

Many fanciful explanations of this strange monu-

ment have been offered. Prof. F. W. Putnam says that

"The jaws of the serpent's mouth are widely extended,

in the act of trying to swallow an egg, represented by

an oval inclosure" etc. I offer the suggestion that the

builders were here trying to represent the Naga and

lingam.  Separated by many centuries from     their

Asiatic home, they still cherished some tradition of the

emblems, and in representing them, have not departed

further from nature than has the modern Hindu, in the

conventional forms above noted. The seventh picture

is a photograph of the illustration appearing in Dr.

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88      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. Wright's book on The Origin and Antiquity of Man in the chapter on the Mound Builders. It will be seen at a glance, I think, that here was an attempt to repre- sent a hooded serpent, and this is brought out much more plainly in the photograph which is the frontispiece of the Report of the Archaeological Society of Ohio. It

must be remembered, too, that there is no hooded snake in the Americas. The last picture is a crude copy of another illustra- tion in Dr. Wright's book of the Serpent Mound found in Warren County. Here it seems to me that the attempt was to represent the hood in profile. Com- pare it with the profile of the cobra shown in the second picture noted above. In this case I am informed that

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The Naga and Lingam of India.      89 the nearby creek has eroded a part of the head of the monument, and may have obliterated the lingam, if one existed. This point ought to be carefully investi- gated by those who are in a position to consult the oldest descriptions and drawings of this mound. There is a large possibility of further light being thrown upon the problem of the origin of our American

Indians along the line I have indicated in this paper. "In Mexico sculptured images of serpents are found as large, and as carefully wrought, as those of India." * These should be most carefully scrutinized for evidences of a hood or lingam. The hieroglyphics of Central America and Yucatan should also be carefully searched. * The Encyclopedia Americana.

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