People gathered to worship the serpent in the name of luck on the 15th of September.
The Veer Teja temple in Rajasthan played host to the wildly unique snake festival where people willingly were bitten by snakes for good fortune. Yes, willingly.
People from all over India gather each year in Tonk at the temple helmed after the folk of Veer Teja, the who is worshipped in this rural town after being called an incarnation of Lord Shiva (depicted with a single snake wrapped around his neck).
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People pay respect to this deity with songs while dancing to the beats of the drum, holding snakes and receiving bites (OUCH). The bite is supposedly believed to bring good fortune to people, as well as heal ailments.
This festival has been celebrated by people for a few hundred years now but the sheer imagination of getting bitten by a snake is not that far from terrifying but somehow there has never been a case of a person actually receiving medical attention there. People believe that respecting the snake will help one attain salvation and should pour milk on snakes and release them into the wild.
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We don’t know if the bite will really help you in term of illness or salvation but the ones with complete faith attend this festival. People cover wide distances to pay their respect to the serpent and have been continuing to do the same so far.
Please do not try this at home under any circumstance even if you love Shridevi’s Nagin dance. She won’t judge you if you didn’t either.
(Credits: makeagif.com)