Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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LOOKING FOR THE SERPENT LORD
Who’s Simply Everywhere

Text : J.M. Cadet
Images : S.P.

As you’ve probably noticed, Chiang Mai – and Thailand as a whole – isn’t short of mythical, legendary and quasi-historical characters, and with one exception, the histories celebrating them and the ceremonies they enjoy are pretty-well known to everyone.

For example, who hasn’t heard – with a shudder – of the cannibal guardians of this part of the North, Bu Se, Ya Se and their demonic relatives: or, come to that, not attended the annual forest ceremony at which a buffalo is sacrificed to keep these spirits happy in the year ahead?

Or Queen Chamadevi of Lamphun (Haripunchai as it was called in her heyday of some one thousand four hundred years ago) and the astonishing act by which she overcame the Lawa hero Viranka… both of whom, incidentally, are honoured when it comes to paying respects at appropriate dates in the calendar?

Or the Phayao prince Suwanna Khamdaeng, who was lured into chasing a golden spirit-deer, and ended by founding a city where Chiang Mai now stands, long before the historical founder, King Mengrai, appeared on the scene?

But what about Phaya Nak, Serpent Lord of the Underworld? Raise his name among your local acquaintances, and they’ll as likely as not raise an eye-brow. And their reluctance to appear to be on as familiar terms with him as they are with their other local spirits probably stems in part from a prejudice against his species’ leglessness. After all, however remarkable their other attributes, the legendary beings above all have familiar human forms. And then again – haven’t we all at some time or other had encounters with real time serpents?

You know, when you take a broom-stick to one basking in the winter sunshine at the bottom of your garden. And when you tell him to be on his way and shake your stick at him and he rears up to half your height – “OK, pal!” you say. “Take your time …” and retreat carefully. Which might perhaps colour our opinions regarding Phaya Nak.

Nevertheless, put prejudice aside, look around you, and you’ll find the Lord of the Underworld pretty well everywhere. Where, did you say?

Well, let’s take a look at any temple. Who do you meet before climbing the steps leading up to it. Who else is that at either side of the staircase but Phaya Nak himself, impressively raising his bejeweled head, and undulating his elaborately-scaled body along the balustrade all the way to the top. Oh, and by the way, half way up, that lady gracefully wringing water from her hair is his consort, Phra Mae Torani, Mother Earth. This is outside the temple, mind you, but inside he’s such an imposing presence that you see him architecturally represented everywhere: on the steps leading up to the vihara and bot - the main chapel and ordination halls respectively - but also ornately in their eaves and finials. And as likely as not inside those buildings are intricately-decorated water dispensers that also have serpentine forms. So that the temple appears not only enveloped by the body of the Naga but also occupied by him. Now why is that?

The legendary explanation is that when ex-Prince Siddharta was seeking enlightenment, a Naga lord of the locality raised his hood over the Great Being to protect him from a storm, and Phra Mae Torani scattered enemies that would have attacked him while in trance. This is why so many major images of the Buddha represent the Great Being seated on the coils of a giant serpent that has raised its head over him (Phaya Nak again, of course). And this shows – so the legendary explanation goes – that the Primal Pair were acknowledging the pre-eminence of the Buddha’s dispensation over their old one.

All very well in its way, of course, but the images we see could be turned on their heads, so to speak. Instead, of Buddhism assimilating and taming the Old Dispensation, couldn’t they be showing Buddhism’s assimilation by it? After all, many anthropologists have pointed out that the primary religions of South and Southeast Asia were those of the soil, with the Great Serpent as one of its most important manifestations. So wouldn’t it be wise to take a cautious line, and say that while Buddhism is unquestionably mainland Southeast Asia’s major religion, its predecessors, especially the Serpent Lord, are still in evidence and active?

A visit to Thailand’s neighbour, Cambodia, provides solid support for such a view. The reliefs and images of one of the world’s most famous antiquities, Angkor Wat, show just how powerful the Serpent Lord was in the old religion. He’s shown on the bas reliefs there as Vasuki, in the process of being used by demons and devas to churn the Sea of Milk, which produced both the ambrosia of immortality and a frightful world-destroying poison. The Serpent Lord seen at that time as an ambivalent power, wouldn’t you say?

And that’s precisely how the legends of Thailand characterize him. Show Phaya Nak the respect he deserves, and he will reward you. Alternatively, insult or ignore him…

That’s the message of The Legend of Nang Ai and Padaeng from the Northeast, and understandably, because in proto-historic Southeast Asia, if you wished to found a royal dynasty, you had better be either born of the daughter of the Serpent Lord of the land, or married to her. But once granted possession of a realm, calamity would surely follow any disrespect of the ultimate owner, who would normally show his displeasure – as in the above legend – by flooding the land and drowning its inhabitants.

Here perhaps we need to modify our view of Phya Nak, since while he’s the owner of the land, his place of residence is traditionally seen to be the rivers, particularly the major ones.

And it’s here before the rainy season begins, or at its end, that boat races are held to ensure the Naga shows his generosity by providing enough water for irrigation of the fields, and his moderation in bringing the season’s rains and the inevitable flooding to an end. The most spectacular of these ceremonies is the Royal Boat Procession on the Chaopaya River in Bangkok - when the King takes the lead in his magnificently-decorated vessel named Ananta Nakarat, (The Everlasting Naga King, in translation). Municipally-organised races are also held in the North, most notably in Chiang Mai and Nan, with the same objective.

But while all these are legends, you’d be mistaken to suppose Phaya Naka doesn’t still have a place in the lives and activities of the Thai people, since it’s in the mightiest of Thailand’s rivers, the Mekong, that the Serpent Lord makes his most remarkable and enigmatic appearance. This story is to be found in an anthropologist’s account of one of the Northeast’s most popular places of pilgrimage, the That Phanom Chedi, at Nakorn Payom, on the lower banks of the Mekong. According to the account, some sixty years ago, a merchant saw an amazing display of brilliantly coloured lights playing about the chedi, and a couple of days later, a novice from the temple, sent out on an errand by the abbott, found himself confronted by seven nagas standing (!) in a row, who transformed themselves into seven white-clad youths. Not unnaturally disturbed, the novice hurried back to the temple, where he was possessed by a naga chief, and found himself speaking to his abbott in the voice and with the authority of the seven-headed Naga Lord himself. Sent by the King of the Gods, Indra, the Naga Lord required changes in the way food-offering and sacrifices were made to him as the guardian of the chedi’s holy relic. Since that time, the account tells us, the novice was frequently possessed by the Naga guardian, who preached sermons, cured the sick “and will continue to be the guardian of the shrine till the end of this era of the Buddha Gotama”.

But just to bring this account of Phaya Nak, the Serpent Lord of the Land, right up to date, let’s stay here on the banks of the Mekong, to see a remarkable phenomenon occurring at this time of the year, which is attributed to the power of the Naga, still living in the river, and giving notice - so they say - of his presence there.

For a few nights coinciding with the full moon in October, just up river from the That Phanom temple in the Phon Pisai district, hundreds of coloured bubbles, or perhaps fireballs, rise from the bed of the river into the air. This has been going on since way back, by all accounts, but just recently it’s been attracting the attention of tourists from all over the country. Some say the bubbles are caused by fermentation processes in the river, while skeptics say it’s trickery. But for the majority of the viewers, it’s nothing other than Phaya Nak himself, reminding us that he’s still taking care of us after all these years. And that we should give him the respect he’s worthy of.