Manasa Devi: The Serpent Queen of Mercy and Might.

Manasa Devi: The Serpent Queen of Mercy and Might.

Picture a monsoon dusk in a Bengal hamlet: the air thick with wet earth and the hum of crickets, a clay idol crowned with serpent hoods glows under the dance of oil-lamp flames. A villager kneels, offering milk and whispered pleas, her voice trembling for safety from the unseen coils beneath the fields. With each breath, a name rises - “Manasa.”

Who is Manasa Devi, this goddess met with both dread and devotion, a figure lingering on the edges of the divine council? She wields no blazing trident, sits on no jewelled throne, yet her sway over serpents marks her as both healer and harbinger. Meet Manasa Devi, the serpent queen whose mercy soothes and whose might stings, a deity of duality born from thought and the eternal.

Her origins twist through sacred lore. The Brahma Vaivarta Puran (Prakriti Khanda, Chapter 44) calls her the mind-born daughter of Sage Kashyapa, shaped to tame the wild serpent brood threatening the earth. “Manasa,” meaning “born of the mind,” whispers her genesis. The Mahabharat (Adi Parva, Chapter 27) binds her to Sage Jaratkaru, her union birthing Rishi Astika, who stills King Janamejaya’s serpent-dooming yagna, shielding her kin.

The Harivamsa (Chapter 47) crowns her sister to Vasuki, lord of nagas, her blood steeped in scales. The Devi Bhagavat Puran (Book 9, Chapter 1) casts her as a faint spark of the Supreme Goddess, a quiet force weaving cosmic order among celestial tides.

Her purpose unfurls in tales of duty and defiance. The Brahma Vaivarta Puran recounts Kashyapa’s charge: dominion over snakes, a mantle of guardianship. Through Astika, the Mahabharat etches her legacy, his wisdom a bulwark for the naga race. The Agni Puran bids her devotees offer incense and sindoor, their smoke curling skyward in her name.

Yet her folk saga roars with life. In Bengal’s Manasa Mangal, she locks horns with Chand Saudagar, a merchant bold enough to spurn her. Her wrath sinks his ships and looses serpents to claim his seven sons - Lakhinder falling to a bite on his wedding night. His bride, Behula, braves nine months on a banana raft, cradling his corpse, her unyielding love bending Manasa’s will. The sons rise, Chand’s wealth returns—a testament to her fury and forgiveness. In Assam, Ojha-Pali dances and Deodhai rites hail her as Marai, a tribal enigma, feared yet cherished.

Her worship pulses through the land. On Naag Panchami in Shravan (July-August), across Bengal, Assam, and Jharkhand, milk splashes at snake holes, voices chanting her name to ward off venom. In village yards, the phani manasa bush -jagged and untamed - cradles her puja, strewn with flowers, paddy, and bhog, a tribute to her wild roots. Kolkata’s Lalabagan temple hums with her faithful from November to February. In Andhra Pradesh and Tripura, women fast, their lips tracing her deeds, praying for fertility and refuge. Folk ballads sing her triumphs, clay idols—hooded with nagas—stand sentinel by rivers and under boughs, shields against poison and fate. A stotram from the Manasa Mangal, woven by poets like Vijay Gupta, lifts her as Vishahara, poison’s bane, its verses a plea for protection and plenty.

Manasa reigns on the margins, a goddess of the humble, not the highborn. When milk drips on an anthill or a village song swells, feel her—gentle to the loyal, fierce to the proud, a serpent queen threading life and death.

Chant in reverence: “Om Manasa Devyai Namah”—a quiet bow to the mistress of the coiled realm.