Post by youma on Jan 2, 2007 19:41:00 GMT -6
Hey!
Today I wanted to make a drawing of a naga, but when I want to make a 'serious' drawing I make sure I know what the subject is about, so I looked around the net for the origin of the myth and its variants, and reflections in contemporary culture, and so on...
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From what I found it could be that Lovecraft created Cthulhu after the Naga.
The most obvious hint could be the buddhist name: Klu, pronounced Lu - Klu(lu). As you may know, Lovecraft provided many pronounciations to his deities' names, and one is Klulu.
The Naga is a dragon or serpent god with many heads, some of its representants having as many as a hundread. I'd say Lovecraft probably thought tentacles would be creepier than multiple heads, while on a sketch it would be likely to look similar.
And in fact, an African equivalent of the Naga, called Lau, is said to have tentacles on its face.
Like most serpent gods, the Nagas live in water. They are immortal - in some myths, they can be killed(by an eagle deity that is actually another facet of the same god), but will not die naturally. In Southern India and Australia, you even find the concept, though not the name, of R'lyeh:
"In this version of the legend, the Nāgas inhabited a massive continent that existed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean region. The continent sank and the remnants formed the Indonesian archipelago and Australia. These Nāgas are said to have developed a subterranean or underwater civilization technologically more advanced than ours and they are thought to possess superhuman powers"
-Wikipedia
--- Post edited to add the following paragraph:---
The most common depiction of a naga is of a seven-headed one, which also matches the description from the christian bible of the beast that will raise from the abyss and impose its rule over Earth before the apocalyps.
That might all be pure coïncidence and Lovecraft got his inspiration from a totally different source, but considering how he liked to link his imaginary world with existing mythologies to present human supersticions as a reflexion of a darker reality, it would be surprising to find no references of this type at all.
____________________
And in the end, I decided I'd make the drawing I intended just as I initially imagined it. But not tonight, time went by while I was browsing, and I'm one of those people who go to sleep early.
Today I wanted to make a drawing of a naga, but when I want to make a 'serious' drawing I make sure I know what the subject is about, so I looked around the net for the origin of the myth and its variants, and reflections in contemporary culture, and so on...
_______________
From what I found it could be that Lovecraft created Cthulhu after the Naga.
The most obvious hint could be the buddhist name: Klu, pronounced Lu - Klu(lu). As you may know, Lovecraft provided many pronounciations to his deities' names, and one is Klulu.
The Naga is a dragon or serpent god with many heads, some of its representants having as many as a hundread. I'd say Lovecraft probably thought tentacles would be creepier than multiple heads, while on a sketch it would be likely to look similar.
And in fact, an African equivalent of the Naga, called Lau, is said to have tentacles on its face.
Like most serpent gods, the Nagas live in water. They are immortal - in some myths, they can be killed(by an eagle deity that is actually another facet of the same god), but will not die naturally. In Southern India and Australia, you even find the concept, though not the name, of R'lyeh:
"In this version of the legend, the Nāgas inhabited a massive continent that existed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean region. The continent sank and the remnants formed the Indonesian archipelago and Australia. These Nāgas are said to have developed a subterranean or underwater civilization technologically more advanced than ours and they are thought to possess superhuman powers"
-Wikipedia
--- Post edited to add the following paragraph:---
The most common depiction of a naga is of a seven-headed one, which also matches the description from the christian bible of the beast that will raise from the abyss and impose its rule over Earth before the apocalyps.
That might all be pure coïncidence and Lovecraft got his inspiration from a totally different source, but considering how he liked to link his imaginary world with existing mythologies to present human supersticions as a reflexion of a darker reality, it would be surprising to find no references of this type at all.
____________________
And in the end, I decided I'd make the drawing I intended just as I initially imagined it. But not tonight, time went by while I was browsing, and I'm one of those people who go to sleep early.