A couple weeks ago on The Classic Tales, B.J. Harrison did an excellent reading of my favorite childhood story, “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” by Rudyard Kipling. Before and after the story, he mentioned Harry Potter, noting the name link between Nagini and Nagaina, the evil female snake in the story.
I admit I had completely forgotten the names of the snakes in “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” and had never made the link. In Harry Potter & Imagination, I linked Nagini to her predecessors in Hindu mythology. That Kipling was aware of the Nagas of Hindu mythology is a certain just from reading the story. I found it interesting that Rikki-Tikki was able to catch up with and defeat Nagaini because a bird, Darcy’s wife, swooped down and delayed her.
If you’re not familiar with “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” you haven’t revisited it in a while, or you just want to hear a great reading of it, do listen to B.J. Harrison’s reading. It’s accompanied before and after by excellent and insightful thoughts on myth and the hero’s journey.
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As a student of English literature, it seems more than likely that JKR would’ve read a fair amount of Kipling. Otherwise, it’s some strange coincidences.
I’d guess that she’s quite familiar with both. Hindu mythology would be studied in any world lit or mythology course.
We’d talked about the similarity between Kipling’s snake and JKR’s snake before – probably at the HogPro site. We could argue about whether JKR got the idea from Kipling, or if she and Kipling were both inspired by the Nagas of Hindu myth. But it’s actually much bigger than the Potterverse. A quick Google shows six (6) distinct popular cultural uses of the name Naga: in war games (and attached novels), in comic books, in animation, and in video games. The Marvel character was “born” in 1969; nagas appeared in D&D in 1975; the Japanese movie/manga/game Slayers’ Naga in the 90’s; the videogame Monster Rancher nagas in 1997; the Warcraft game/novel nagas around the same time; and the Werewolf game/novel nagahs in 2004.
A cultural anthropologist would have an interesting time tracing what led to what and by what route. Kipling took the name from Hindu mythology – or did he? Naga is the Sanskrit word for snake. Wikipedia also gives four references to people linked with the name: a clan and an ethnic group in northern India and Kashmir, an Indian regiment, and a tribe in Sri Lanka.
Is it even safe to say that Naga entered late-20th century pop-culture by way of Kipling? Sure, a lot of people read Rikki Tikki Tavi, and that is the likeliest link, but the people who develop comic book/rpg/videogame worlds and characters are exactly the type to scan Sanskrit dictionaries, looking for interesting character names.
And where did JKR get it from? Reading Kipling as a child? Reading Marvel comics as a teen-ager? Playing rpgs? A Sanskrit dictionary?
My guess is that the word entered the popular cultural stream of the 20th century probably by way of Kipling, kept a low but viable profile until later on in the century when Roy Thomas used it to name a villain for the Sub-Mariner series. The D&D people (RIP, Gary Gygax) obviously cut their eye-teeth on Marvel comic books, and adopted the name when they wanted to name their snake-like characters. From there it became common property for all rpgs, associated novels/mangas, and eventually, videogames. By the time JKR came along, the word was entrenched in popular sub-culture as synonymous with snake.
Speaking of Roy Thomas, he is the same comic book writer who brought Tolkien into late 20th century popular culture: in September 1969, in issue #60 of the X-Men, Karl Lykos, who had a fascination with LOTR, at the time a fringe group novel, mutated into a pterodactyly type super-villain who called himself Sauron.
No writer is an island, entire unto himself – or herself.
Yeah, the information would be available from several sources. My first experience with Rikki was through the animated tv special so many, many years ago now. I just looked it up, 1975!! Good grief that makes me feel old. I was ten.
Red Rocker, great tracing back of the history. I think it fits in well with Travis’ description of JKR mixing up a soup pot full of the goodness of other writers or cultural themes & putting out something good herself.
I doubt that JKR played Dungeons & Dragons, though. I did & had forgotten about the Nagas until this discussion but they were always included in some of the very first Monster Manuals that came out. Generally considered to be an evil race of snake humanoids. Or humanoid snakes as the case may be.
Piers Anthony also had them as a crossbreed race in his Xanth novels. A Naga was even a main character in one of them. They were generally good in Xanth.
revgeorge, I’ve never read any of Anthony’s works. Wikipedia shows a Naga in Xanth circa 1990. Did they appear earlier than that?
I agree with you that JKR probably did not play D&D. And being English, she’s more likely to have read Kipling than Anthony. But it’s not the specific route of transmission that fascinates me, as much as how the concept enters the popular cultural stream, and how it’s maintained and replicated.
What a coincidence! Last week my 7th grade students were reading “Rikki Tikki” and we had this very discussion about Harry Potter and the Nagas. The thing about “Rikki Tikki” that we could only vaguely touch on, though, since ours is a public school, is the Christian symbolism. I amazed at how blatant it is, yet no one ever mentions it because adults don’t read it and kids who do, don’t pick up on it.
Renee, you’ve got to say more on that topic, which is bound to catch the attention of many of the visitors to this site.
Analogies to Moses cast upon the Nile in a bulrush basket, I can see. Oedipus or Ulysses – or any hero – going into the underworld during a Quest, I can see. Can you draw the Christian links for us as well?
It’s been a while since I’ve read Rikki, so if you have the time, Renee, I’d like to hear more about the Christian parallels.
Sorry about that last comment: did not intend to bold the whole thing, just Renee’s name. It looks like I’m shouting.
Red Rocker,
I had never thought the Marvel villian Sauron had anything to do with Tolkien. He’s a humaniod pteradactyl dinoSAUR after all.
You left Led Zeppelin off your list. There was a number of LOTR references in their songs.
Korg,
That’s an interesting observation. While we know that Lykos (and therefore his creator, Thomas) named his pterodactyl-like villain after Tolkien’s character, we don’t know why. Was it because the villain was going to be a pterodactyl and as you say, the saur in Sauron sounds like dinosaur? Was it because he had Tolkien’s villain in mind and would have called him that regardless, and made him into a dinosaur-like creature to fit the name?
And going back further, into the mind of Tolkien: why did he elect to call his villain by that name?
We know that in Tolkien’s constructed language, Quenya, the word means Abhorred We also know that he didn’t start out evil, so either his name changed with his allegiance, or his name didn’t always mean what it did. We also know that in The Hobbit he was referred to as the Necromancer
So the question is: did Tolkien pick a reptilian name for his super-villain and later incorporate that word into Quenya? Did Thomas do something similar, picking a dinosaur-related name (which happened to be Tolkien’s villain as well) for his super-villain?
Does it all go back to the dinoasaurs?
OK. Here’s more but pardon the typos and abruptness. This is going to be quick and dirty because I have a million and one things to do today. “Rikki Tikki Tavi” is basically a Christian allegory. Rikki is Christ. The half-cultivated garden is the dominion of the King Cobras (Satan –think Garden of Eden and the fallen world, naming the snakes Nag & Nagaina reinforces this allusion to Satan, as does the fact that cobras are inherently evil since they are not only snakes but poisonous ones who feed on innocent life–baby birds ). Rikki leaves his natural world and his true family (heaven & God) to become part of a human family and protect them from the cobras and certain death. He is only able to do this after he nearly dies in a flood and there is talk of him actually being dead and “revived.” Nag & Nagaina only want to harm the family in order to get rid of Rikki. No humans means no mongoose, and they will continue to be king and queen of the garden. Why does Satan hate humanity? Because it is so important to God. I also think it’s significant that the family is British instead of Indian. They represent Christendom, and when Rikki kills Karait and Nag, the father is there both times after Rikki has done all the hard work to finish off the snake, so we have Christians cooperating with Christ to rid the world of Satan and restore the garden to a pre-fall condition where God and humans can one again live in harmony. Nag also mentions that cobras as special to Brahm, a Hindu God, so you have the idea of Christianity triumphing over Hinduism and western ‘missionaries’ bringing Christianity to India. Darzee, the tailorbird, takes refuge from the cobras by building his nest out of Nag’s reach in a thorn bush which recalls the crown of thorns–Christ’s passion saves us and keeps us out of Satan’s reach. Also Rikki descends to the underworld (Nagaina’s lair), and Christ descended to the dead after his crucifixion. Sorry that this is all a such a jumble. I don’t have the time to build this into a persuasive case, but I’m confident that this level of the story will be apparent to anyone who rereads it with open eyes. I’d love to hear if any of you find other allusions.
Forgot to mention–Darzee’s song of Rikki triumphing over Nag is based on Christian triumphal hymns. I didn’t catch that one on my own; I picked it up from the professional criticism.
Renee,
Darzee’s song put me in mind of the Eagle’s song over Minas Tirith after Sauron’s downfall.
Red Rocker,
The answer may lie in the pronounciation. Tolken’s Sauron is pronounced more like SOUR-ron (though I always think of it as SAW-ron) and I suspect the comic character is the other way.
I found this definition of “nag”
This ideas equates well with the Satan- him being the accuser.
So Sauron was sour – bitter, acidic, resentful, glum, dark – vs. reptilian or dinosaur like?
But he was not always thus: it’s been a while since I’ve read the Silmarillion, but Wikipedia says that he was not initially one of the rebellious Maiar who followed Melkor/Morgoth. Rather, he was seduced by Melkor who appealed to his love of “order and co-ordination” by his efficiency. Makes him sound rather like an accountant, that.
Either way, the name does not do him justice. I’m pretty sure he must have had an earlier, more Eru-inspired name prior to his fall from grace.
Also makes me think of Dumbledore and Grindelwald: there, but for Arianna’s death, went Albus.
As for naga, Wikipedia tells us:
N?ga (Sanskrit: ???, IAST: n?gá, Indonesian: naga, Javanese: nogo, Khmer: ??? neak) is the Sanskrit and P?li word for a deity or class of entity or being, taking the form of a very large snake, found in Hinduism and Buddhism. The use of the term n?ga is often ambiguous, as the word may also refer, in similar contexts, to one of several human tribes known as or nicknamed “N?gas”; to elephants; and to ordinary snakes, particularly the King Cobra and the Indian Cobra, the latter of which is still called n?g in Hindi and other languages of India. A female n?ga is a n?g? or n?gin?.
I don’t know if Hindi and Old Norse have common root words: I suspect that they do, as they both fall in the Indo-European family of languages.
Sounds like Sauron is the untimate evil bureaucrat.
Speaking of ultimate evil, I see that you’re channelling Hal.
Call me weird but I feel for HAL when dave is shutting him down.
Do you remember the Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense episode of Millennium? I love when Peter is dismayed when he finds out Frank is investigating “Self-0sophy” (an obvious dig at Scientology) as a lead. Frank asks him “What’s the matter Peter? I’ve seen you face evil incarnate!” Peter responds “Evil incarnate can’t sue.”
Renee, your analysis of Ricki is interesting. I don’t remember it much besides some imagines from the cartoon when I was a kid.
Red and Korg, love the sauron discussion. Never would have put together that the XMen and Tolkein character had the same name.
Whether Rowling got her inspiration for Nagini from Hindu Legend or Ricki Tikki Tavi (or both) just shows her breadth of knowledge and how carefully she crafted her stories.
I love Millenium, but there are a few episodes I missed. That might have been one of them.
There is a song by Tom Waits, called “Fall of Troy” on the soundtrack for Dead Man Walking. The lyrics go:
It’s the same with men as with horses and dogs
Nothing wants to die
You can add murderous computers to that list. It’s no different than any murderer, who wants to live. And that, I believe, is the point: HAL is nowhere more human than at the moment of his death when he expresses the desire not to die.
BTW, there’s a song on that same sound track, by Eddie Vedder and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, called Long Road which always gets to me. It’s the song I imagine Harry might have been singing during his walk in the Forest.
I seem to remember that the Xanth books had vilas as well (spelled that way rather than with the double e Jo uses). But it’s been years since I last read any of them.
Renee wrote, “I also think it’s significant that the family is British instead of Indian. They represent Christendom, and when Rikki kills Karait and Nag, the father is there both times after Rikki has done all the hard work to finish off the snake, so we have Christians cooperating with Christ to rid the world of Satan and restore the garden to a pre-fall condition where God and humans can one again live in harmony.”
I thought your analysis of the Christian allegories in Rikki was good. I just had a minor quibble. Rikki is the one who does the real work & defeats both snakes before the big man even gets involved. So, what we have here is Christ defeating the serpent & man coming in thinking he still plays some part in doing so when in fact it’s already been done for him!
I was just able to listen to Harrison’s reading of Rikki. As always he does a superb job with the characterizations. His comments, especially his ending comments on the nature of the hero’s journey & the power of myth, were quite insightful.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but if you get the chance, watching the tv special from the mid-70’s is worthwhile. Chuck Jones of Bugs Bunny fame produced it & it’s essentially a straight across retelling of the story. No director’s vision thrown in.
I was watching Full Metal Jacket the other night and the drill sergeant that Lee Ermey was playing told a recruit to go somewhere “Rikki-Tik!” Which I assume means alert and on the bounce.
It’s interesting to me how and where a word enters the common parlance.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen FMJ , but what I remember of it didn’t seem compatible with references to Kipling.
Are you sure he didn’t say “rinky dink”? It means cheap, insignificant or old-fashioned. Which doesn’t make too much sense either, but neither does Kipling.
I’m sure of what I heard.
I’ve no problems with a Marine drill instructor having read or having been read to Rikki-Tikki-Tavi as a kid.
Just found this:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/23/messages/66.html
Right you are, Korg. Sorry for doubting you. I Googled “most riki-tik” from your link and found the Urban Dictionary definition: it’s Marine Corps jargon for “hurry up”. Here’s the link:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=riki-tik
Now the really fascinating question is how Kipling’s mongoose found his way into the USMC. Reminds me of the other discussion we’ve been having, about the origins of nag and nagini
I obviously can not leave well enough alone. So I Googled some more and ended up in a dictionary of military terms:
http://www.combat.ws/S4/MILTERMS/MT-R.HTM
RIKI TIK :
to act rapidly, quickly, urgently, hastily, speedily, swiftly, promptly, or expeditiously; often emphasized by ‘more’ or ‘most’, as “mo’ riki tik”. Adopted from Japanese, phrase is also spelled “riki-tik”, “rikki tik”, or “ricky tick”. See ASAP, PDQ, GOYA, FORTHWITH, SCRAMBLE, STAT, HAUL-ASS, JUICE, CHOP CHOP, CHOGI. [nb: the newly popularized expression: "mosh kosh", which is being used in the same sense as RIKI TIK to express urgency (pronto, soonest, right away), is actually a corruption of Americanized Japanese "mo' skosh", from the Japanese 'sukoshi' meaning "little"; hence a little more instead of a little faster]
Don’t know whether to accept this or not, especially since there is no mention of the Japanese term it supposedly originates from. I think I’ll dig some more.