FLYING SERPENTS AND DRAGONS

By R. A. Boulay 1990

Editorial Comments By Roberto Solàrion 1997

THE SERAPH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the Old Testament, explicit references to our serpent-god ancestors have been all but eliminated over the centuries through a long process of selection and editing. When allusions are found in the Scriptures, they are interpreted as merely allegories. There is a strange incident related in the Book of Numbers concerning a bronzed or brazen serpent which raises many questions that are never fully addressed by Biblical scholars.

In the second year of the Exodus, after they had left the comforts of Mount Sinai and were struggling across the wasteland, the tribes had a skirmish with the King of Arad in the Negeb and prevailed after much difficulty. The incident of the Brazen Serpent happened then:

"They set out from Mount Hor by the road to the Red Sea to skirt the land of Edom. But the people grew restive on the journey, and the people spoke against the Lord and against Moses. ’Why did you make us leave Egypt to die in the Wilderness? There is no bread and water, and we have come to loathe this miserable food.’ The Lord sent seraph serpents among the people. They bit the people and many of the Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ’We sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede with the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, ’Make a seraph figure and mount it on a standard. And if anyone who is bitten looks at it, he shall recover.’ Moses made a brazen serpent and mounted it on a standard; and when anyone was bitten by a serpent, he would look at the brazen serpent and recover."

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning of the incident is obviously idolatry, an activity stringently forbidden in the Scriptures. The Hebrew word "seraph" is an unusual one and appears only a few times in the books of the Old Testament.

In Isaiah 14 and 30, the "seraph" is referred to as "me ofef seraph" or literally "flying serpent" and is associated with Philistia and the Negeb, lands which were traditionally the home of the descendants of the Nefilim after the Deluge. The Brazen Serpent which was made by Moses at God’s command was revered in the Temple sanctuary until the Eighth Century BC when, according to II Kings 18, King Hezekiah, angry over idol worship, "broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made."

[Comment: The Eighth Century BCE would have included the year 762BCE when, as has been noted previously, the series of cataclysms began, accompanying the departure of Planet Nibiru from its tethered position above the Earth’s North Polar Axis.]

It is doubtful if this was the original "seraph" made by Moses about 1450 BC and that it survived till this time. In either case, it demonstrates that the worship of serpent-gods was well established among the Israelites during the period of the Judges and Kings, and it suggests that Yahweh had at least at one time been identified with the serpent-god.

The term "seraph" has worried Biblical translators and commentators over the years. It is translated as "fiery serpent" in the King James version; however, the modern tendency is not to translate it at all but to render the Hebrew word as given. "Seraph" does not fit any convenient classification or translation. It seems more probable that it is a borrowed word from the Canaanites who acquired it from their Mesopotamian heritage.

The roots of the term may well be Mesopotamian. The "flying or fiery serpent" atop a pole worshiped for its healing properties symbolically represents Enki, the Sumerian god of healing, who was often associated with the snake symbol. There is also a curious resemblance of the snake wrapped around a pole, with the later caduceus of the Greeks.

In the Gilgamesh Epic the serpent which steals the magic plant from the hero is called a "seru," and the similarity of the words suggests a common origin. The term is also encountered in Hindu mythology which has Sumerian antecedents. The Nagas, the mysterious serpent-gods who dwelt in India in ancient days, were called "sarpa" or serpents.

In her studies on Hindu religion, the theosophist Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky asserts that the Nagas or "sarpa" of India are "unquestionably the Jewish Seraphim as derived from serapi or sarpa meaning serpent."

There is a little known ancient religious document which not only refers to the serpent-gods but also cryptically to the gods of the Sumerian pantheon. As such, this Christian hymn probably has its origins in a Sumerian prayer. Called the Prayer of Joseph, it is of a group called magical papyri, of Greek origin and dated to the Second Century AD. It starts out as a hymn of praise:

"Father of the Patriarchs, Father of all things, Father of all the powers of the Cosmos, Creator of all, Creator of the angels and archangels, the Creator of the redeeming names, I invoke you."

After a few more invocations, the prayer continues dramatically:

"You who sit upon the mountain of Holy Sinai, You who sit upon the sea, You who sit upon the serpent-gods, the God who sits upon the sun god."

This paean is interesting and pertinent for a number of reasons. Besides the tacit reference to the serpent-gods, it also refers to the god who sits upon the sea. Although the line is incomplete (suspiciously so - all the missing words are in critical places!), it appears to be a veiled reference to the water god Enki and his water palace.

[Comment: Enki was equivalent to the Greek Poseidon, God of the Sea.]

The sun god referred to is presumably Utu/Shamash just as the god of Mount Sinai is Ishkur/Adad.

[Comment: Utu was equivalent to the Greek Sun-God Apollo, and Ishkur to Ares, God of War.]

Thus, the invocation seems to be addressed to Enlil [Zeus], the ruling god of the Canaanite pantheon who later became known as El in the Old Testament. Furthermore, the redeeming names are probably the Tablets of Destiny or the Divine Names which have been equated with the MEs of the Sumerians.

Serpent-gods are not just found in the history or mythology of the ancient Middle East. Dragons, flying serpents, and serpent-gods appear in the mythology of people throughout the world and everywhere are the creators and benevolent ancestors of man. In some cultures there also remains the lingering memory of a serpent-race that was cruel and barbaric.

SERPENT-GODS IN THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

Aratta is often mentioned in the Sumerian literature as a far-away land controlled by the goddess Inanna from her tutelary city of Uruk. According to the epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, it lay beyond Anshan (now Iran) and a journey to Aratta required the crossing of seven mountains and dreaded river Kur.

It has been suggested that Aratta may be the same as Harappa of the lost Indus Valley civilization. Harappa, along with Mohenjo-daro, was a city of the ancient Dravidians, the legendary serpent people who preceded the Aryan occupation of India.

In the 1920s, archaeologists made some amazing discoveries in the Indus River Valley. The ruins of two large ancient cities were excavated, one called Mohenjo-daro was on the Indus River proper, the other Harappa was on the Ravi, a major branch of the Indus located in the Panjab or Land of the Five Rivers. Like the cities of Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley, they were built on the alluvial plains. However, unlike these other cities, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa seem to have sprung up fully planned. Both were identical in layout. While no ziggurats were found, each city had a mound ten meters high, a sort of artificial platform.

These cities did not evolve from primitive villages but were completed as cities within a century or so. They were built from "scratch" as if by an outside force. In other words, they were constructed as a colony, probably by the Sumerians, and presumably by Enki, their chief engineer.

The cities sprang up about 3500 to 3000 BC and later came to a violent end around 2000 BC or soon thereafter, according to archaeological evidence. What has puzzled historians is that the people who lived here are not related to the Aryans who came some 500 to 600 years later and settled in the Panjab and Gangetic plain. Like the ancient Sumerians, the people of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa spoke an unknown language.

[Comment: Assuming that the Planet Nibiru was last in our local system from about 1600 to 700 BCE, then its previous visit would have been from - adding 3600 years to each date - 4200 to 3300 BCE. These derived dates are close enough to the hypothetical years noted above to lead one to the conclusion that these Dravidian cities were constructed for use by the Nibiruans during their next-to-the-last visit to Earth/Tiamat.]

Artifacts found here also link it with the valley of Mesopotamia. Button seals from these sites are very similar in style to the cylinder seals of Sumer. In fact, one shows a wild man wrestling two beasts, very similar to the one of Gilgamesh standing between and strangling two lions. These two cities are probably none other than the Sumerian colonies which were established after the world became inhabitable again after the Deluge. It has been suggested by historians that these cities were the center of the Dravidian culture and inhabited by the Nagas, a race of serpent-men.

[Comment: If each time the Planet Nibiru arrives and departs from this area of our Solar System, there are planetary cataclysms - or "deluges" - due to gravitational and electromagnetic abnormalities, this further supports the contention suggested above that these two Dravidian cities were founded by and for the use of the Nibiruans during their next-to-the-last visit here.]

THE NAGAS, THE SERPENT-RACE OF ANCIENT INDIA

The Ancient Book of Dzyan, probably the oldest of Sanskrit sources, speaks of a serpent race which descended from the skies and taught mankind. Madame H. P. Blavatsky spent three years in Tibet, Bhutan, and Sikkim, accumulating thousands of Sanskrit sources which were compiled into the Book of Dzyan. These sources concern the ancient people called the Nagas or Sarpa which were semi-divine beings with a human face and the tail of a dragon. Blavatsky believed that these Sarpa are undoubtedly the Seraphim of the Old Testament; the Seraphim would thus have the same etymological roots as the Sarpa of ancient India.

Hindu mythology and literature in also replete with the sexual liaisons of gods and mankind, and of the procreation of numerous strange beings called Dravidian and Dasyus. This race reportedly lived in large walled cities. They were a coarse, cannibalistic people, dark-skinned and flat-nosed. The Aryans who came later ran into the remnants of these serpent people; they are vividly described in the Ramayana :

"Near Bhogavata stands the place where dwell the hosts of the serpent race, a broad-wayed city, walled and barred, which watchful legions keep and guard. The fiercest of the serpent youth, each awful for his venomed tooth, and throned in his imperial hall is Vasuki who rules them all."

The antediluvian Dravidians had been wiped out by the Deluge. When the Earth was repopulated, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro became the center of the Dravidian culture.

Much of the evidence that Dravidian, Dasyus, and Nagas were all different names for these people can be found in the great epics of India, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Both epics concern the early Aryan contacts with these serpent people, some which were friendly, others hostile. Due to the intermarriage of the Aryans with these people, a sort of ambiance, a love-hate relationship, seems to permeate these two great epics.

In the epic Mahabharata, a group of "celestials" arrive by aerial car to attend the wedding feast of the Aryan kings:

"The gods came in cloud-borne chariots, came to view the scene so fair. Winged Suparnas, scaly Nagas, bright celestial cars in concourse sailed upon the cloudless sky."

These Nagas intermarried with Aryans, producing kings and heroes. For example, in the Rig Veda there are names like Divodasa which indicate that there was some cross-breeding between Dasyus and Aryans soon after 1500 BC.

[Comment: This date falls into the period 1600-700 BCE.]

Many of the ancient Hindu gods mated with humans and, like in Sumer, produced a hybrid mammal-reptile, the semi-divine kings which resound throughout the literature of both Sumer and India.

The Hindu literature of India asserts that divine people had descended and conducted biological experiments with apes. In fact, Hanuman the monkey god, who with Rama is the hero of the epic of the Ramayana, was conceived when the god Shiva gave a sacred cake to Anjan, the ape. This obvious reference to a genetic experiment produced Hanuman, the super-monkey, very much reminiscent of the Enkidu of the Gilgamesh epic.

[Comment: According to my linguistic and mythological research, the Hindu God Shiva would be the equivalent of the Nibiruan Enki, co-creator of the Adamu and Eva.]

THE HINDU EPICS ABOUT THE SERPENT-GODS

One of the great epics of India, the Ramayana, is the story of Sita, the bride of a northern Prince called Rama, who is abducted by Ravana, the serpent king of Ceylon [the modern Sri Lanka].

[Comment: My hypothesis is that Rama is Nibiruan Prince Utu (Greek Apollo) and that Sita is Nibiruan Duchess Aya (Greek Artemis).]

Rama chases the army of Ravana across India with the help of a force of monkeys under the command of the monkey-general Hanuman. Ravana retreats to his island kingdom of Ceylon, supposedly safe from pursuit. But Hanuman builds a bridge of boulders across the straits separating the island from the mainland, and Sita is rescued by Rama.

Throughout the story, Ravana is described in barbaric terms - he "feeds on humans" and "drinks the blood of his foe." He is formidable in battle and almost defeats Rama when he uses his special Naga weapon, described as a "Naga-dart serpent noose," which seems to paralyze his enemies and drain their energy and life-force. Like all divine and semidivine creatures in mythology, Ravana had access to sophisticated weapons.

Ceylon, the island kingdom of Ravana, is the stronghold of the Nagas. It is described as the home of the Nagas in very ancient Chinese sources. In one of the first literary references to Ceylon, when it traded with China before the Aryan occupation of India, it is described as a land of strange reptilian-like creatures. Because of its gems and spices and its convenient location as an entrepot, it became popular with Chinese merchants.

Fa-Hsien, the Chinese pilgrim trader, disclosed that originally the island was occupied by Nagas or serpent deities with whom merchants of various countries carried on a trade. The Nagas never showed themselves to the outsiders. They simply set forth their precious commodities with price labels attached to them. The visiting merchants made their purchases according to price and took the things away.

The other great epic of India is the Mahabharata, the longest and perhaps the greatest epic poem in any language. Much older than the Ramayana, it consists of 88,000 verses. The main theme is the rivalry between two branches of the same family, the Kurus. The Pandavas and the Kauravas fight a war which culminates in the near destruction of both branches of the family at the great battle of Kuruksetra.

As the story begins, King Pariksit of the Kauravas shot a deer while hunting with bow and arrow. Pursuing the deer, he asks an ascetic if he had seen the wounded deer. Observing a vow of silence, the sage did not answer. This angered Pariksit who then took a dead snake and placed it around the sage’s neck. The ascetic’s son Srnga was incensed and put a curse on Pariksit. Thus started the blood feud between the two families.

Significantly, a third party intervenes. Angry over the blasphemous use of one of their own kind, the serpent-gods enter the story. Taksaka, the king of the serpent-people, sends snakes who cause the death of Pariksit.

The story of the blood feud is actually narrated as something which happened in the dim past. Since the ancient kingdom of the Kurus flourished along the upper course of the Ganges in the 14^th and 13^th Centuries BC [Comment: Again within the time-period 1600-700 BCE.], the events may have taken place in the early days of the Aryan invasion when there was much intercourse with the Nagas.

The Mahabharata story begins with the great sacrifice of King Janamejaya. As the story is narrated by the sage Vyasa, the son of Pariksit, King Janamejaya performs a ceremony to avenge his father’s death, a snake sacrifice called the "yajna." Its purpose is to totally destroy the Nagas, the serpent-gods which supposedly could assume snake or human form at will, and one of which killed Pariksit.

In the ritual, the priest invokes the names of the serpents as they toss live snakes into the fire. Astika, the son of the serpent-king Taksaka, intervenes and pleads with Janamejaya to let his relatives live. The war stories and other narratives were then told as revolving tales at these sacrifices which were of long duration. It is the view of the Indian historian D. D. Kosambi that the "yajna" itself was not so much an account of a great war but rather it was the story of the great "yajna" sacrifice. In other words, it was a symbolic ceremony of propitiating their serpent ancestors while at the same time expelling them from their cultural heritage.

In the struggle between the two branches of the Kurus to control the plains of the upper Ganges, there is a reflection of the wars of the sons of Enlil and Enki in the area of Mesopotamia. In the Hindu epic, the Pandavas seem to be the victor since they regain most of their kingdom which had been lost earlier. Started with conventional weapons of the period, such as spears, swords, bow and arrow, the war escalates into the use of more powerful and sophisticated ones supplied by the gods on both sides.

These weapons have all the characteristics of modern missile and nuclear systems. In one instance, one side hurls a missile which is countered by an opposing missile in the sky. The explosion of the two missiles as they meet causes many deaths below on the ground. The battle has modern connotations. It is as if one side launched a ballistic missile which was countered by a nuclear-tipped anti-ballistic missile and destroys the incoming missile, causing a deadly rain of radioactive fallout.

After a prolonged war, the Kauravas find themselves losing and in desperate straits. It is then that they decide to end the war through the use of forbidden tactics. In the middle of the night, they descend on the unsuspecting sleeping Pandavas and slaughter most of the warriors. Incensed by the breach of the rules of warfare and the decimation of their army, the Pandavas decide that they have no choice but to use the ultimate weapon, the "celestial weapon" that is capable of defeating all other weapons.

The leader of the Kauravas decides to discharge a similar weapon, one which apparently produces radioactivity, for he declares, "I will direct this weapon upon the wombs of the Pandava women." He predicts that the Kuru line would become extinct "for the fetus will die." His warning comes true for the weapons produce sterility in all the Pandava women. The war between the Kuru cousins finally ends in a stalemate with the near obliteration of both branches of the family.

SERPENT-GODS OR DRAGONS IN CHINESE HISTORY

While the serpent-god shows up in the form of the dragon in Chinese history and mythology, there is no doubt that we are dealing with the winged, legged serpent or Naga of the Hindus. China chose the dragon as the national emblem for profound reasons. They believed that the Celestial Dragon was the father of the First Dynasty of Divine Emperors and as a result the dragon’s pictorial emblem became regarded as inspiring divine beneficence to the land of China.

According to Chinese history, Asian dragons were present at the Creation and shared the world with mankind. Like the Western serpent, the dragon was linked with the development of Man; and it was the dragon that taught him the essential arts such as how to make fire, how to weave nets for fishing, and how to make music.

The Chinese dragon was unrivaled in wisdom and its power to confer blessings and as a result came to symbolize that most beneficent of men, the Emperor who was believed to have dragon blood. This affinity with the dragon is shown by the imperial accoutrements: the Emperor sat on a dragon throne, rode in a dragon boat, and even slept in a dragon bed.

According to Charles Gould in his classic work on Chinese mythology, the belief in the existence and friendship of the dragon is thoroughly woven into the life of early Chinese history. The Vih King, the most ancient of Chinese books, whose origins are cloaked in mystery, describes the days when man and dragon lived together peaceably and even intermarried, how the dragons came to represent the Emperor and the throne of China, and how the Chief Dragon had its abode in the sky.

In the year 212 BC, the Emperor Tsin-Shi Hwang-Ti ordered all ancient books destroyed and the persecution of learned men for a period of four years [Comment: the first "cultural revolution"?]; and as a result of which, at one time 460 savants were buried alive together. During this orgy of suppression of ancient knowledge, the Vih King was considered so sacred that it was specifically exempted from the edict.

[Comment: It is intriguing - although it is probably purely coincidental <?> - that the ancient Library of Alexandria was burned to the ground around this same time-period. That library, too, housed all of the sacred and most ancient of texts from the Middle Eastern civilizations.]

In this classic, many of the ancient emperors are described as having dragon-like features as, for example, Hwanti which Gould dates to 2697 BC. The Emperor Yaou (2356 BC) is said to have been conceived by a dragon father and a human mother. Emperor Shun, dated to 2255 BC, is described as having the countenance of a dragon.

THE SERPENT AS GOOD AND EVIL IN ANCIENT EGYPT

The duality of the serpent as a source of both good and evil is seen in Egyptian religion probably due to certain singular historical events. In the Old and Middle Kingdoms, it is benevolent and associated with the gods and immortality.

Later, starting with the New Kingdom, in particular the 18^th Dynasty, it becomes a sinister creature and an object to be hated and exorcised.

[Comment: If we assume as a given that the historical revisionism of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky is fact, then the Middle Kingdom ended around 1600 BCE as a direct result of the cataclysms which also spawned the Exodus and the Thera/Santorini Explosion, i.e., the arrival of the Planet Nibiru into this vicinity. Thus began a "Millennium of the Gods," which lasted until about the year 700 BCE, which is about the time of the advent of the New Kingdom’s famed 19th Dynasty, that of Seti the Great and Ramses the Great. If Nibiru’s departure caused additional cataclysms at that point in time, coincidentally with the genocidal campaign of Sargon of Assyria, it is easy to see how the rulers of the late Egyptian 18th Dynasty and early 19th Dynasty would cease to view the "Saurian Gods" as benevolent and start to condemn them as sinister.]

On the walls of the tombs of the earlier dynasties, the snake is depicted as a friendly creature which bears the king on his back into the stellar sky. It is symbolic of the king’s being carried by the serpent-god to the land of immortality, to the land of the gods.

At about this time, the snake was adopted as a symbol of kingship or godship and began to appear as the "uraeus," the divine asp on the headdress of the pharaoh.

But in the New Kingdom after the first kings of the 18^th Dynasty had rid the country of the hated Hyksos, the serpent takes on an evil character. It becomes an evil object to be exorcised at rituals. Called Apep or Apop (Greek Apophis), it is the manifestation of the foreign barbaric Hyksos who had invaded and occupied Egypt for hundreds of years.

[Comment: According to Dr. Velikovsky, the Hyksos invaded Egypt at the same moment in time that the Israelites fled, i.e., around 1600 BCE. They ruled a conquered Egypt until about 1000 BCE when King Thutmose I of the 18th Dynasty expelled them forever and established the New Kingdom.]

Apop was the original Hyksos ruler and with his descendants ruled from the 14^th through the 17^th Dynasty. Many of the rulers adopted the name Apop and in particular the last Hyksos king to be defeated by Ahmose and Kamose, the founders of the 18^th Dynasty.

Apop possessed many epithets and in ceremonies meant to destroy him was cursed by a number of names. The ritual is reminiscent of the "yajna" ceremony of the ancient Hindus who called out the various names of the snakes as they were thrown into the fire. The Egyptian hate was deeply rooted in the memory of the cruel rule of the Hyksos kings who systematically destroyed Egyptian culture and monuments. We shall see that these hated people were none other than the descendants of the Rephaim, the offspring of the antediluvian Nefilim, who ruled the lands of the Middle East after the Deluge.

SERPENT-GODS IN AMERICAN AND AFRICAN MYTHOLOGY

Among the Mayas of Central America, snake symbolism was very common. Most of the serpents depicted in their art are feathered, indicating the ability to fly. The ancient Mayan book Chilam Balam relates that the first inhabitants of Yucatan were the Chanes or "People of the Serpent," who came across the sea from the East led by Itzamna, a serpent-god. He was the most important deity in the Mayan pantheon; and as the dominant sky-god, ruler of the heavens, he is one of the few Mayan gods not to be associated with death and destruction.

Itzamna was the creator god, the one who infused the breath of life into Man. As such, he fits the description of the Sumerian god Enki perfectly. Eric Thompson, the dean of Mayan studies, maintains that the term "itzem" from which the god’s name is derived should be translated as "lizard" or "reptile." In fact, Itzamnal, the city of the god Itzamna, literally means "the place of the lizard." There are also many anthropomorphic forms of the god Itzamna where he is depicted as half-human and half-serpent.

The benevolent serpent-god is also found in the later Mexican mythology in the Aztec civilization which superseded the Mayan one. Quetzalcoatl is the plumed serpent-god who brought the benefits of civilization to Mexico and taught the science of astronomy and mathematics to man.

[Comment: Sitchin correctly identifies Quetzalcoatl with the Nibiruan Prince Nannar, the Egyptian Thoth and the Greek Hermes. This editor also includes a correlation with the Asian Buddha.]

Legends of serpent-gods also abound throughout the mythology and religion of Africa. To the Dogon of Mali and Upper Volta, their ancient god created the sun and moon, then the earth from a lump of clay, and finally the first primitive beings who were twins called Nummo, half-human and half-snake.

[Comment: And as we know, the Dogons also placed the origin of their gods in the Sirian Double-Star System, which the Egyptians referred to as Osiris and Isis.]

In the Nyoro tribe, legends say that god sent the first human couple down from heaven when he established the world. The man had a tail and produced two maidens and a boy. These in turn bore the chameleon, the father of mankind.

Other African tribes also trace their ancestors to lizard-like people. To the Kumbi, the first men that god created had tails. The Ewe-Ho tribe describes men with tails who had climbed down on a rope to Earth. To the Jagga, their ancestors came down to Earth from heaven on a thread from a cobweb: the ancestor was called "the tailed one."

[Comment: Of course, our modern establishment anthropologists would have us believe that our coccyx tailbones are residual bones from our apelike ancestors. If they only knew... ]