Research source

The sacred dragons of this kind are innumerable

Date of account: Second edition published 1896
Source: The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Reference: The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2) · selected passage 71
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-25

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

The sacred dragons of this kind are innumerable. The Buddhist cave at Pabhosa in the Allahâbâd District was the home of a monster of this class, who was subdued by Buddha. [338] That in the dragon tank at Râmagrâma used to assume the form of a Brâhman. [339] Dr. Buchanan tells of another at Bhâgalpur. "They showed me a hole in a rock opening into a hollow space close by the path leading up to their village. They said that this hole was the abode of a very large serpent, which they considered a kind of god. In cold weather they never saw it, but in the hot season it was constantly observed lying in the hollow before its den. The people pass by it without apprehension, thinking it understands their language, and would on no account injure one of them, should even a child or a drunken person fall on it." [340]

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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