Nagas Don’t Have Arms?
25 January 2009
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A modern Indian statue of Naga Kanye/Kanya, a naga princess who became a Buddha. This is one of her traditional forms: snake lower body, human upper body with wings and a headdress of five cobra heads.
I keep running into claims that the half-snake, half-human naga form is a fannish creation, and that genuine mythological nagas don’t have arms. It’s puzzling, because a bunch of 13th-century Indians thought they had arms… and so did some folks from Jabalpur… and some 12th/13th-century Thais who worshipped Naga Kanya… and some 15th-century Nepalese… I started a link list and gave up after a couple of hours when I got bored. Surely I’m not the only person who’s used Google Image Search for “naga” or “nagini”?
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