Explore the pantheons

The many-hooded serpent whose venom poisoned the river Yamuna until the boy Krishna danced upon his hoods and banished him, sparing his life at the pleading of the serpent's wives.

The thousand-headed world-serpent, also called Ananta, "the endless," upon whose coils Vishnu sleeps between cosmic ages. The earth rests on his hoods; his yawns cause earthquakes.

The serpent king whose fatal bite killed King Parikshit, provoking the great snake sacrifice of Janamejaya, the very ritual at which the Mahabharata was first recited.

King of the nagas, who served as the churning-rope wound around Mount Mandara at the churning of the ocean, and whom Shiva wears coiled about his neck.