The Cosmic Serpent, Water and the Spiral Code of Life Itself
Discovering your divinity in the secret of the snake.
Above the archways of countless temples, coiled at the entrance plates, or woven in double helix around sacred portals, there is a serpent watching. She has been here since the beginning — before time even had a name.
She is as old as the cosmos itself.
So, what does she guard?
What secret does she keep in the stillness of temple halls?
This cosmic serpent coils through ancient myths and sheds in-numerous skins of time. She is there because she carries wisdom that binds into a union human soma and its transmutation into eternity. In Vedic tradition, this snake is not just a symbol, she is the bridge to cosmic consciousness.
Mythological Hindu lore is abound with divinities that are warmly sympathetic to Maya’s life-illusion. Among them, personifying and directing terrestrial waters, there are Nagas (king and queen snakes) and Ananta (cosmic serpent).
The cosmic serpent and life giving power of waters
Picture this (with the help of this AI generated mimic of ancient handcraft):
The supreme procreator of the Universe, Vishnu himself, with the Goddess Padma (Lotus) and his spouse Lakshmi (Prosperity) are lounging in their heavenly quarters. Cosmic spa is universally associated with the living waters - those that relax and heal effortlessly. One of the most common sights of Vishnu in such a lounge is recumbent on the bed of coils of Ananta, the cosmic serpent. Graceful, he reclines in slumber as if absorbed in a trance state, dreaming of the universe inside him. The god rests while his shoulders are surrounded by the serpent heads with expanded hoods.
This multiheaded snake is an animal counter-part of the antropomorphic avatar of the dreamer himself. They call her Endless (Ananta) - coiled in with Vishnu she at once represents the eternity of cosmic waters and the residue remained after the Earth with all her beings have been shaped.
Let us also have a sneak peak at Nagas - king realms superior to man.
They inhabit subaquatic paradises, dwelling at the bottoms of rivers, lakes and seas. They tend to choose places “resplendent by pearls and gems” - as a symbol of their rank as keepers of life-energy that is stored in earthly waters of springs, wells and ponds. Naga princesses are synonymous with charm and cleverness. And their most important function is of a door guardian: the reason why they appear so often on the portals to temples and shrines. They loom in their proper attitude of fervent devotion and loving concentration on the inward vision of the god whose precincts they guard.
Divine responsibilities of the Cosmic Serpent
She is the embodiement of the life-sustaining terrestrial waters that have forever been a symbol for fertility and vegetation. This, as I discovered in many indigenous/ancient folkloric traditions, is a universal association.
In Hindu art, the snake image will often come together with an image of a tree and a jar or a bowl of water - symbol of abundance - from which a luscious plant grows. In many temples I visited, plates with serpents are placed under a neighboring tree to call in fertility.
Such symbolism is also common in Buddhist art. Equal to Hindu artistry, there is no hint of an antagonism between the “savior” and the snake as we are used to see in the West (comparative analysis of which deserves its own post).
According to Buddhist and Hindu views, all the genii of nature rejoice together with the highest gods upon the appearance of the incarnate Maya. And water serpent is no exception: she is there to eagerly progress towards the final enlightenment, spiraling upwards as..
..the double helix of the human DNA.
Obviously, not yet scientifically known to the Brahmins of pre-Christian era.
Did you know that a prodigious cobra dwelt in a hole amongst the root of the Banyan tree seated under which Buddha attained illumination?
The great cobra coiled around the blissed-away Buddha when a great storm had begun. The snake twisted around Buddha seven times and with expand of his giant hood sheltered the blessed one’s head. The serpent who motivates birth and rebirth into Maya, and the “conqueror of the blind will for life”, the way-shower to transcendence, are here together in a harmonious union,
beyond all the dualities of thought.
It is the perfect spirituality merged with sensual charm.
The triumph over the bondage of life, in supreme peace, is radiating with sweet and tender compassion of the cosmic serpent. She rejuvenates herself into the higher levels of virtue by shedding off its skin.
Naga, the keeper of life’s most sacred waters, is revered. In modern India they still place images symbolising her power in the rivers - the veins of the earth - as they observed thousand years ago the same pattern running through the subtle channels of the body where vital energy flows.
Today, we rather know her by another name.
She is the spiral staircase within us which biology described as the double helix of DNA - “a molecule that contains genetic information for the development and function of an organism”. A less poetic than Vedic definition of the very code of life.
The Spiral that Weaves the Universe
Long before science unraveled the double helix, the ancients had already figured foundational meaning of its sacred geometry. Across cultures and epochs, our ancestors saw the spiraling movement of the universe reflected in the patterns of life: the unfurling of fern leaves,
the starry swirls of galaxies,
the dance of water in river vortexes,
the rising of energy along the spine..
..the serpent does not crawl: she coils, she spirals, she ascends.
And this cosmic pattern is written in light in each and every of our cells — two entwined serpents mirroring the path of yogic “Ida and Pingala” (moon, or yin, and sun, or yang, energies). The left-and-right twin currents of energy in the subtle body ascend if paired together and balanced in capacity.
This is what the sacred Nagas entwined in an upward dance in mythological Hindu iconography have been guarding for thousand of years - the secret to the Tree of Knowledge.
Life, Death, and Renewal in the Cosmic Code
Here my occasional usage of “shedding skins” revealed deep subconscious insight hidden in somatically felt sensations: to peel off layers is to transcend, to die and be reborn. No other creature does it as the serpent. Shedding its old form, she is the living emblem of renewal and evolution - the ceaseless movement of life itself.
So is our DNA: constantly rewriting itself. It simultaneously carries the imprints of generations before us, and potential of the future. The memories of ancestors woven into our cells AND the eternal potential of primeval cosmic ocean.
The Nagas are the lineage that pulses through your very incarnate being. Like Vishnu, reclining on the serpent of eternity, you can dream worlds into being - it is your consciousness shaping reality, directing your very DNA to shape forms of Maya-of- life.
The serpent weaves Maya, the grand movie of Life Itself, and gets entrapped in it at the same time. The same double helix that births us into flesh is the same force that binds us to the wheel of birth and rebirth, forgetting the direction for ascension on the path..
The Serpent’s Secret
Yes, the path of the serpent is not only onto matter—it is of an ascent.
The final triumph of the Naga happens through cosmic ocean - eternal and so similar to the element of Ether - pure possibility of consciousness itself. The spiraling force that binds life on Earth is also the energy that awakens us by serpent’s rise through the waters of our own body. She sets us free through the liquid life-giving medium that knows no boundaries, that flows eternally if her way won’t get blocked by the tricks and diversion of the Maya.
Seven coils of the snake around Buddha, or Shiva-Vishnu, stand for seven energy centers in your body - seven veils of illusion on the path of awakening.
The same serpent that births us into Maya is also the one who protects the path out of it.
Paradox you may not be able to hold with your logical mind, but can experience with the wholeness of your being.
She is neither good nor evil, both life and death.
She is the code of all creation and transformation.
She is the cosmos within you.
Let’s experience her ascend in our own bodies, breath and bliss.
Find out more about my work:
https://rootsandwings-transformation.com/
References:
- Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization by Heinrich Zimmer
- Rg Veda