Explore "The Nagas" by Jorge Luis Borges on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Nagas belong to the mythology of India. They are serpents but often take the form of a man.
In one of the books of the Mahabharata, Arjuna is pursued by Ulupi, the daughter of a Naga king, and firmly but gently has to remind her of his vow of chastity; the maiden tells him that his duty lies in soothing the unhappy. The hero grants her a night. The Buddha, meditating under a fig tree, is chastised by the wind and the rain; a Naga out of pity coils itself around him in a sevenfold embrace and opens over him its seven heads so as to form a kind of umbrella. The Buddha converts him to the Faith.