The Day of the Holy Serpents

The ancestral occupation of Chet Kumari Chitrakar, 65, is devotional art – painting gods and goddesses for the altars of the people of Bhaktapur, a city also known as ‘the city of devotees’.

But this week has been particularly busy in the run-up to Nag Panchami, the festival of the multi-headed serpent god that falls on Saturday 25 July this year.

She cannot turn out the paintings fast enough for people to buy to stick them to their main doors to protect the household from earthquakes, lightning, pestilence – and this year from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chet Kumari learnt how to make these paintings from her Chitrakar in-laws – the surname means ‘artist’. Besides Nag Panchami, she also turns out paintings for Chotha Puja, Gai Jatra (4 August) Indra Jatra, Bisokarma Puja, Dasain and Tihar. Now that paddy planting is over, Kathmandu Valley’s calendar is filled with festival every week till harvest time in October.

“I feel holy while I make these sketches and colour the figures of deities, it is like praying,” explains Chet Kumari, as she imprints the outlines of serpents from a wooden block before infilling them with colour. She buys paper, colour powder from the market, works on different block shapes and fills in the colours with her brushes. It takes about 15 minutes to complete one.

But the tradition is dying out because of cheaper printed posters in the market. But there are still many people of Bhaktapur who prefer these handmade paintings to the mass produced ones precisely because the sacred drawings are made by the hands of a devotee herself.

“It is sad that young people these days are not interested in the festivals and the significance that they carry,” Chet Kumari says, but she is happy she is there to uphold the tradition of her forebears.

Legend has it that there were many serpents living in the lake that once filled Kathmandu Valley till the level of the top of Swayambhu Stupa. But when Manjushree drained the lake by striking the Chobar Ridge with his sword, the serpents were washed away.

But there are still said to be some lingering about in water bodies like Taudaha and other holy ponds, especially Nag Pokhari in Naxal. On Saturday, special rituals will be held at Nag Pokhari, with the bronze serpent head on a pedestal in the middle of the pond being ceremonially bathed in milk.

Nag Panchami is observed by both Hindus and Buddhists, and the practice of the head of the household pasting a serpent image on the door is unique to Kathmandu Valley.