Atop the quiet little village of Bhanara that grows in random steps amidst pockets of orchards and farms high-up on a hill that rises from the very edge of the old Kullu-Manali Highway at Jagatsuk, the temple Shirgan Naga is a picture of enchanting tranquility to the backdrop of a dense forest of cedar Deaodars, mysterious and alluring with light wisps of smoky mist, on a rainy day in the month of August, 2016.
Shaped by a new generation of architects versed in the Kath Kuni form of architecture – a building technique that’s popular in this part of the Western Himalayas – it is a melange of slate and tough Deodar wood with intricate carvings of the Hindu god Shiva and a hooded Cobra whose gaze, straight and unwavering, overlooks the entrance to an interior that houses a Lingum and the residing deity himself.
In almost all versions of local Himalayan folklore (see Farbound.Net story: Behind the myth of the serpent people) that tells of how snake worship came to be in the hills of Himachal, Shirgan is desribed as the brother of Kana Naga (see Farbound.Net snippet: The Trinty temple of Goshal) and one of the 18 children of Basuki, the lord of snakes.
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Like Kana, who earned his honorific after a mythical fire accident left him blind in one eye, sometimes said to have been started by his grandmother and other times by his aunt, Shirgan earned his name, by being the first to break out of the container he was placed in with his brothers and sisters, and making his way to the area where his temple stands today.
Although Shirgan is a bona fide divinity with his own unique place in Himalayan mythology, he is very often confused with Takshaka Naga, another serpent deity whose legends are mentioned in the epic Mahabharata and who is closely associated with the ancient region of Takshila, a place of historic importance and which is now in the present-day country of Pakistan.
This confusion seems to be more deeply entrenched among the local residents of the Kullu-Manali belt.
In 2016, as I had set out for the temple, after a brief stopover at Manali, every time I had enquired for directions, I was surprised to find no one was aware of the name Shirgan. In fact, and en route, the temple was described to me as the temple of Takshaka Naga, despite the presence of a large signboard inside the premises of the temple, which has his name clearly spelt out.
For the residents of the village of Bhanara, however, Shirgan has been a patron deity for generations. In all this time, he has cared for the local dwellers and guarded them from all manners of harm and evil. Through his Gur (Priest/Shaman), he has solved problems, arranged marital partners and even helped name children at birth.
His story, while having picked up local flavour and altered by narrators over the years, continues to bear similarity to more recognised myths associated with snake cults in India. A form of worship scholars believe predate the dominance of the Vedic Aryans, and one that began projecting the serpent as a creative and divine force till its ultimate merger with the Hindu god Shiva under the Brahminical system.
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The older temple was probably a cruder version of the new one as temples in the Western Himalayas are thought to have begun as simple mounds of stones piled up high and gradually refined upon with the passage of time.
The Shiva Lingam inside, a later addition as well. The name “Shirgan” literally means the serpent that used its head to break out.
I F I This is an independent story describing the temple of Shirgan Naga at Bhanara in relation to his legends in Himalayan mythology. The description of the Serpent Deity was curated from literary sources and not created out of local information. I
Shirgan nag and takshak nag are same, there is no difference between the two.
Hi, Taksha Naga is Taxila. Now in Pakistan. His legend is very different from Shirgan Naga. Taksha Naga is said to have dwelled in the forest of Khandava, generally thought to the region of Delhi and later Taxila. The legend of Shirgan Naga developed in this region of the Himalayas. It comes from the Atthara Kardu or 18 serpent deities. It is different.