The semiotics of the Snake

The aRputat Tiruvantaati of Punitavatiyaar

puuNaaka onRu punaintonRu poGkaLin
naaNaaka meenmiLira nakamaittuk - kooNaakam
ponmudimeeR cuuduvatu mellaam poRiyiliyeeR(ku)
enmudivataaka ivar
 


Meaning:

For me who is still in the Darkness of Ignorance, the meanings are NOT clear at all as to why BEING (Siva) discloses Himself as the wearer of various kinds of snakes, one as an ornament on the chest, another and a violent one on his tiger skin waist and another a large one on His head. The metaphysical significations of these are not clear to me at all.

Comments:

Punitavati is still locked with her semiotics of the Snake that stands as an element in iconographic representations but here in the very presentational form of BEING, the muurttam.


She declares that in her ignorance, she is perplexed as to their meanings, is already hinting at the meanings for she isolates this symbolism as something very meaningful though she is not clear as to what is communicated.  Certainly something deep and profound is communicated and she hints at their meanings though describing the varying forms of snake in relation to the anatomy.


The Snake, a ubiquitous symbol of the Coiled Power, the ENERGY that is NOT just physical but also psychical is the snake of deep dreams, mythologies and captured as iconographic feature of not only Siva and VishNu but also many other deities


The golden snake that rustles as a chain on the neck is the form of Libido that establishes Pure Love as the bond that establishes social cohesion of self with others. The chest is the location of the heart and the libido of the heart appears as the FEELINGS of Pure Love and which is source of existential happiness. He who is capable of LOVE unto all, do not suffer existential anguish of whatever kind.


The live and hissing snake on the waist and around the attire of Tiger Skin is the form of Coiled Power that emerges as sexual libido along with Violence. The sexual dynamics always comes with immense possessiveness and always violent both in the males and females.  This is something Punitavati had personal experience of and which with immense struggle she had overcome and because of which she became a ghost, living but dead to the enticements of worldly pleasures.


The large snake, the KooL Nagam on the head that Siva wears stands for the psychic energy that underlies the mental, the metaphysical excursions in which remote seeing or transductive perceptions become what are cognised and analysed. This is also the Aticeedan of VishNu sleeping over which he enjoys the ARituyil or Yoganidra  the transductive perceptions that make available the seeing of the concealed and hidden.


But what does Punitavati communicate in describing these different kinds of snake on one of the muurttams of Siva?


The Coiled Power, the 'me' (Tamil: moy) of the Sumerians and which is lorded over by In-anna, the Generatrix of all is the Pure Energy and which allows being transformed into various forms. Just like the same energy is transformed into heat by electric iron and light by the electric bulb so there are YANTRAS, translating machineries of various kinds within the body of an individual. 


These snakes at the various locations of the body are such yantras, which are actually mantra complexes (probably as softwares in the brain) that transform the energy when become available into the above sorts.


ULLAGANAR
( 2-8-2002, AT )
 
( editing and re-paragraphing by his student)