Nag Panchami

Nag Panchami honours the serpent deities of Hindu tradition and reflects an old relationship between religion, agriculture and respect for creatures that share the land. One major katha recalls King Janamejaya’s great serpent sacrifice, begun in anger after his father’s death from a snakebite. As countless nagas were drawn toward the sacrificial fire, the young sage Astika intervened and persuaded the king to stop, saving the serpent clans. Other popular retellings remember Krishna subduing the poisonous Kaliya in the Yamuna without destroying the entire serpent lineage. On Nag Panchami devotees worship symbolic images or shrines of Nagas such as Ananta, Vasuki and Takshaka, offer flowers and traditional foods and pray for protection from snakebite and for family welfare. In farming communities the day also encourages restraint toward snakes during the monsoon, when encounters with them are more common.

Nag Panchami is valued for devotion, family tradition and the spiritual or seasonal meaning attached to the day.

Milk is poured at a snake's hole, or over a stone or clay image where there is none. Nothing is dug, ploughed or cut into the ground for the day. In parts of Gujarat a snake is drawn on the wall beside the door in kumkum and offered the first of whatever is cooked.

Battis Shirala in Maharashtra was once known for live cobras, now restricted. In Gujarat the day falls in Shravan vad rather than sud, so it is a fortnight later than in the north - one of the clearer cases of the amanta and purnimanta calendars disagreeing. Kerala keeps Nagaraja shrines in the family compound and honours them here.