The Norton Simon Museum's webpage (
visit link) for this sculpture informs us:
"Serpent Deity, 100-150
India: Uttar Pradesh, Mathura, 100-150
Sandstone
78-1/4 x 34-5/8 in. (198.8 x 87.9 cm)
The Norton Simon Foundation
F.1972.22.2.S
© 2012 The Norton Simon Foundation
On view
Serpents (nagas) are credited with the power to cause rain, bringing forth growth and abundance. Because they shed their skins, they are also considered symbols of regeneration. In Indian art, serpent deities are often represented as humans with snake hoods. The importance of this figure is conveyed by his frontal pose, his monumental size, and the seven-headed snake hood that rises above him like an enormous canopy."
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"Naga ... is the Sanskrit and Pali word for a deity or class of entity or being, taking the form of a very great snake — specifically the king cobra, found in Hinduism and Buddhism. A female naga is a nagi or nagini...
In the great epic Mahabharata, the depiction of nagas tends toward the positive. An epic calls them "persecutors of all creatures", and tells us "the snakes were of virulent poison, great prowess and excess of strength, and ever bent on biting other creatures" (Book I: Adi Parva, Section 20). At some points within the story, nagas are important players in many of the events narrated in the epic, frequently no more evil nor deceitful than the other protagonists, and sometimes on the side of good.
The epic frequently characterizes nagas as having a mixture of human and serpent-like traits. Sometimes it characterizes them as having human traits at one time, and as having serpent-like traits at another. For example, the story of how the naga prince Sesha came to hold the world on his head begins with a scene in which he appears as a dedicated human ascetic, "with knotted hair, clad in rags, and his flesh, skin, and sinews dried up owing to the hard penances he was practising." Brahma is pleased with Shesha, and entrusts him with the duty of carrying the world. At that point in the story, Shesha begins to exhibit the attributes of a serpent. He enters into a hole in the Earth and slithers all the way to bottom, where he then loads the Earth onto his head. (Book I: Adi Parva, Section 36.)"