| No Title | |
|---|---|
| 250px The snake sacrifice of Janamejaya, as Astika (boy in red) stops the king | |
|
No Title |
No information |
Astika was an ancient Hindu rishi (sage), and he was a son of Jaratkaru by the serpent goddess Manasa - a sister of the great serpent king Vasuki. According to the Mahabharata, he saved the life of a serpent Takshaka, the king of snakes, when king Janamejaya organized a snake sacrifice known as Sarpa Satra, where he made great sacrifices of serpents, to avenge for the death of his father Parikshit [1] due to snake bite of Takshaka. Ultimately, he induced and prevailed upon the king to end his persecution of the serpent race.[2] That day was Shukla Paksha Panchami in the month of Shravan and is since celebrated as the festival of Nag Panchami.[3]
References[]
- Dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend (Template:ISBN) by Anna L. Dallapiccola
Bibliography[]
- Garg, Gaṅgā Rām (1992). Encyclopaedia of the Hindu World. Concept Publishing Company. ISBN 978-81-7022-376-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=0U2QRpDv2KMC&pg=PA743. Retrieved 2 August 2013.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
 |
This Creative Commons Licensed page uses content from Wikipedia (view authors). The text of Wikipedia is available under the license Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported (ToU). |