--- Ong Yong Peng <yongpeng.ong@...> skrev:

> Dear Gunnar, Florent and friends,
>
> since we are talking about siiha/lion on another
> thread, I thought
> why not reply to this one which I wanted to earlier.
>
> Has anyone thought about why naaga can refer to
> serpent, elephant and
> dragon?

The elephant has a snake-like nose.

And the mythological dragons are often more or less
inspired by real snakes. In the Bible, the Devil is
sometimes called "the old dragon", and among many
modern Christians he is - probably incorrectly -
identified with the snake in the garden of Eden.

Miðgarðsormr in Old Norse mythology is a border case.
He is called a snake, but in at least one myth he
appers as a cat, which means he must have legs.

Interestingly, in Jewish and Christian mythology,
snakes and dragons are generally symbols of evil; for
us, no. We have the charming story of the cobra king
Mucalinda acting as a living umbrella for the Buddha,
and Suttanipaata begins with the Breastwalker's Sutta
(Uragasutta), where the snake's habits are used as a
positive example.

Old Norse culture seems to have been ambivalent on the
issue; Miðgarðsormr is supposed to be evil, but Viking
ships used to have dragon heads in the front, and old
rune stones often have the runes inscribed in a snake
or dragon, so they can't have had too much against
them (and, ironically, most rune stones are
Christian).

Gunnar


gunnargallmo@...