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Author
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Comment
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Skygirl
Unregistered User
(8/30/05 3:39 pm)
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Searching for Nagas
years ago i had a gorgeous greeting card with a picture on it called "she meets the nagas for the first time" and i believe it was from "East of the Sun, West of the Moon"; can you confirm?
Thanks,
Skygirl
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(8/30/05 3:45 pm)
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Re: Searching for Nagas
The info I could find on nagas (such as this
website) describes them as southeast Asian creatures.
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neverossa
Registered User
(8/30/05 4:06 pm)
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Re: Searching for Nagas
Nagas in Hindu mythologies are snakes. They're beneficent cretures linked to water, the underground and the origin of life (so even sexuality). One myth tells that before the birth of the universe there was just water, and the god Vishnu sleeping over a big snake called Ananda (Infinite). Nagas represent the inconscious root of life so as the eagle Garuda represents reason - it's interesting the parallel with the snake and the eagle living at the bottom and at the top of the Yggdrasil, the tree of the world in Nordic mythology. If you're interested in hindu mythology a wonderful book is Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization by Heinrich Robert Zimmer; I read it several years ago, but I think that I found there all that I can remeber about snakes in India...
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Writerpatrick
Registered User
(8/31/05 9:35 am)
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Re: Searching for Nagas
The Ramayana comes to mind, but I'm only vaguely familiar with it.
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(9/2/05 2:34 am)
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snakes and eagles
Is the parallel of eagles and snakes common? I'm somewhat familiar with it in Hopi mythology; both are messangers to water sources, clouds in the case of the eagle and underwater springs for the snakes. Interesting to hear of it in Norse and Hindu mythologies as well.
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neverossa
Registered User
(9/10/05 3:02 am)
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Re: snakes and eagles
You find snakes and eagles symbolism widespread in Europe, Asia and the American continent. I can't say it for Africa, or Australia, because I don't know so much of them. There are some historical explanations, (in discussion at the moment), such as the IndoEuropean matrix, and the same origin of the people of Northern Asia and North America. Someone follow the idea of the diffusion of a symbol, through different people, other that of an inconscious path of the human mind... or both. Anyway for what I know the best examples for eagles-snakes power are to be found in Greek, Norse, Hindu mythology... then you find the eagle as a symbol of the divine power in Artic-Siberian shamanism, and in the Native-American culture... and if you just think of the Gospel... the animal of St.John is the eagle.
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(9/12/05 2:51 pm)
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Re: snakes and eagles
According to Wikipedia
"The coat of arms of Independent Mexico, which was adopted in 1821, depicts a golden eagle, called in Spanish įguila real, eating a snake that it is holding in its claw. The design also forms the center of the Mexican flag.
According to popular legend, the Aztec people, then a nomadic tribe, were wandering in Mexico in search of a sign that their god Huitzilopochtli had commanded them to find: an eagle perched atop a cactus, devouring a snake. After two hundred years of wandering, they found the promised sign on a small island in the swampy Lake Texcoco. Here they founded their new capital, Tenochtitlan."
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