[INDOLOGY] A Family Meeting with Nagini Mata: Establishing Relations with the Serpent World, Trees, Grasses and Rivers in a Himalayan Valley

[Akshara Ravishankar]

Dear colleagues,



We would like to warmly invite you to the third lecture of the series
“More-than-Human South Asia: Ecologies, Knowledge, Bodies, and Senses.”



The lecture will take place in a hybrid format (in person and online) *at
4:00 pm CET on Wednesday, April 1st, 2026.*

On-campus venue: Room 2.21, Blandijn.



More information can be found in the attached document, and you can register
 here
<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fevents.teams.microsoft.com%2Fevent%2F6d25f018-b0d3-4bed-95ac-cd4d049455b5%40d7811cde-ecef-496c-8f91-a1786241b99c&data=05%7C02%7CAkshara.Ravishankar%40ugent.be%7C911366c832bd4946cc7808de8c0c0d00%7Cd7811cdeecef496c8f91a1786241b99c%7C1%7C0%7C639102181453999897%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=y2hxFaKF7he59Rn7mKmblFZyjXqS8c3aveSLlJ%2BfRnQ%3D&reserved=0>
for
online participation.



Title: A Family Meeting with Nagini Mata: Establishing Relations with the
Serpent World, Trees, Grasses and Rivers in a Himalayan Valley



Speaker: Gerrit Lange (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)



Abstract: Nine snake goddesses, collectively called Naiṇī or Nāginā mātā
(Cobra Mother), rule over the valley of the Pindar river

in the Garhwal Himalayas of Uttarakhand, India. Each of them has her own
village, to which she is bound by strong

sensual and emotional ties of kinship and belonging. These ties extend to
the women who have married into

other villages, her dhyāṇīs. To visit these women, seven of the Naiṇī
sisters go on journeys from village to village that

last for six months, the dhyāṇī milan dhyorā jāt. Embodied in a bamboo
pole, she is carried around to refresh their

intimate relations not only to their human sisters, but also to other local
deities, rocks, rivers, Pipal and cherry trees

and even a kind of grass called babulū. Like other nāgas, the Naiṇīs have a
close connection to springs and irrigation

channels, to the underworld, to the god Krishna and to the Himalayan cherry
tree (payyā), which are all interwoven

into stories about and rituals performed for the cobra mothers. During the
six months in which the goddess is present

on Earth, the landscape she walks through truly becomes “a world full of
persons, only some of which are human”, to

cite Graham Harveys definition of Animism.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20260327/e97e9143/attachment.htm>