Thai and Khmer Nagas

A journey through the semiotics of the snake divinity

Can you hear them? Creatures are crawling all around Southeast Asia and beyond. Sometimes they rest underground, or swim deep in rivers, when they are not busy fighting with the garuda. Those creatures who look either humans, like giant snakes, or like a mix of both with one, three, five, seven or more heads, are the nagas (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017, Web). The king of the snakes, the god of the rain, of the rivers, of the rainbows… There are many different attributes given to this legendary animal…