“WHO is Nag?” said he. “I am Nag. The great God Brahm put his mark upon all our people, when the first cobra spread his hood to keep the sun off Brahm as he slept.* Look, and be afraid!”
He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part of a hook-and-eye fastening.* He was afraid for the minute, but it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose’s business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too and, at the bottom of his cold heart, he was afraid.
* Brahma is the Hindu creator-god. Kipling here echoes a tale told of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (?5th-4th century BC), which tells how Mucalinda, the great Cobra, sheltered the newly-enlightened Buddha from the blazing sun with his hood. For the tale as retold by English naturalist John George Wood (1827-1889), see How the Cobra Got His Spectacles. According to Sikh lore, a cobra performed the same office for the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak (1469-1539). Buddhism also tells another tale, in which the naga Mucalinda sheltered the Buddha from a great storm for seven days.
* For the posterior view of the cobra’s hood, see a photo at ‘Indian cobra’ (Wikimedia Commons). For the clasp, see ‘Hook-and-eye clasp’ (Wikimedia Commons).