सनातन पुस्तकालय Sanatan Cultural Library

Serpent worship is among the oldest strands of Hindu practice, and in the Telugu country it lives on with particular warmth. The Nagas are honoured as beings of the underworld realm who guard treasure, water and the fertility of the earth; Adishesha bears Vishnu, Vasuki circles Shiva's neck, and Subrahmanya himself is worshipped in serpent form. Tradition holds that offering milk to the Nagas turns their potency toward protection — of children especially — and averts sarpa dosha, the astrological affliction attributed to serpents. Nagula Chavithi, the Karthika Shukla Chaturthi that follows Deepavali, is Andhra's chief day for this worship. Mothers keep the vrata for the health and long life of their children, and the day's prayer, passed down in Telugu households, asks pardon of the serpents for any harm done them knowingly or unknowingly, and their friendship for the family in return.

Women rise early, bathe, and take the day's fast — commonly until the pooja is complete, with many continuing on milk and fruits until evening. The traditional worship happens at a putta, a living anthill believed to house a serpent, often beside a temple or under a sacred tree: turmeric and kumkuma are applied at its openings, and offerings of milk, chalimidi (a sweet of rice flour and jaggery), vadapappu, fruits and flowers are placed there, with cotton vastram and lit lamps. Eggs are not part of the traditional offering; milk poured gently at the anthill's edge is the heart of it. Where no anthill is available, a silver or stone Naga pratima at home or in the temple receives the same worship. The Nagula Chavithi katha is told, children are marked with the anthill's earth as a blessing, and the fast is broken after the pooja.

There are no sacred anthills in a Canadian November, so the diaspora keeps the vrata in its home form: a small silver, brass or stone Naga image — or a turmeric-shaped serpent on a betel leaf, which tradition fully accepts — receives the abhishekam of milk, followed by turmeric, kumkuma, flowers, chalimidi and fruit. Check a panchang computed for Ottawa for the local Chaturthi day, which can differ from Indian listings; the day falls in the same week Deepavali is celebrated here. Chalimidi takes minutes to prepare from rice flour and jaggery, both available in Indian groceries. Families sometimes join the pooja by video call with grandparents performing the anthill worship in Andhra. The vrata's essence — a mother's prayer for her children and a gesture of peace toward all living creatures — needs no particular soil.