We as Hindus do not believe in unnecessary violence, we are allowed to fight to defend ourselves but we do not invite battles, this is true even with venomous creatures.

You may probably already know that there is a tale about the sarpa yaaga – a sacred sacrifice for killing all kinds of serpents, demonic, mortal and divine, hosted by the great king Janamejaya the son of Pareekshit.

His intention was to avenge his father’s killer – takshaka the serpent king. in this post I wont be narrating the whole story in detail. May be that’s for another day.

Today I received a question regarding protection from serpents and i Remembered this chapter of Mahabharata. ‘

With the help of powerful sages like utthanga and others, King Janamejaya conduction this sacrificial fire ritual for days and months, yet his anger did not come down as he still couldn’t attract Takshaka and push him into the holy fire and finish him off  .

Meanwhile, The divine serpent kings requested Astika a sage who was born to Jaratkaaru rishi (male) and Jaratkaaru devi (female) . Jaratkaaru devi is one of the great serpent mothers (naaga maatas)

Astika went to janameyajas yagya and praised him with poetry. pleased by the praises janameya offered to grant anything he wanted. Astika wished that this sarpa yaaga should stop. bound by the vow, the honest and noble king janamejaya stopped the sacrifice ritual.

There sage astika also made a promise  that if he astika and this incident is remembered by humans and they request serpents not to hurt them, they will have to leave silently without causing any harm and the humans shouldnt kill the snakes unnecessarily.

Whenever a human encounters a snake this pact is reminded to the snake in the form of 2 shlokas. this shloka is a part of sandhyawandanam (daily morning and evening prayer rites to the sun) of some sects

the verses are :

सर्पापसर्प भद्रं ते दूरं गच्छ महायशाः |

जनमेजयस्य यज्ञान्ते आस्तीक वचनं स्मरन् ||

sarpāpasarpa bhadraṃ te dūraṃ gaccha mahāyaśāḥ |

janamejayasya yajñānte āstīka vacanaṃ smaran ||

O snake, please move away quickly, me there be good fortune to you , blessings to you. O glorious one please go far away , remembering the promise given by sage āstīka  during the end of janamejaya’s yajña.

जरत्कारोर्जरत्कार्वां समुत्पन्नो महायशाः |
आस्तीकः सत्यसन्धो मां पन्नगेभ्योऽभिरक्षतु ||

jaratkārorjaratkārvāṃ samutpanno mahāyaśāḥ |
āstīkaḥ satyasandho māṃ pannagebhyo’bhirakṣatu ||

May the truthful and greatly glorious āstīkaḥ  who was born to jaratkāru through jaratkāru protect me from snakes. 

This shloka is the shloka 22 from chapter 53 of adi parva (the first canto) of Maharbharata.

These two shlokas are prayer verses to protect ourselves from snakes.

if you notice the nature of the verses they show no hate for snakes , they respectfully request the snakes to move away to avoid mutual harm.

Its said that when anyone sees a snake in reality or in dream ,  chanting these shlokas and requesting the snake not to cause any harm and to go away. is followed since the time of janamejaya