The Nāga: Divine Serpents of Hindu and Buddhist Tradition, Guardians of the Waters and Keepers of the Deep
Nāga at the entrance of the Angkor Temple complex, Siem Reap, Cambodia. The great seven-headed serpent that guards the threshold of the sacred: in Khmer temple architecture, the Nāga flanks every causeway and stairs, its multiple hoods spread in the gesture of protection that defines the entire tradition. Beneath the world there is another world, and in that world vast beings coil in the luminous darkness. They have the bodies of serpents and the faces of deities. They guard the rivers and the rains, the hidden treasures of the earth and the passages between this world and the next. They are old enough to have been present at the churning of the primordial ocean, when the gods and demons worked together to produce the nectar of immortality. They hold the cosmic serpent on which the universe rests. They are the enemies of the great eagle-god, and they are the protectors of the enlightened teacher. They are the Nāga — a class of divine serpentine beings central to both Hindu and B...