---

AFP, via Middle East Times, France
June 2, 2006
www.metimes.com

---

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Item 14848 • Posted: Friday June 2, 2006  

---

BHUBANESWAR, India — A woman who fell in love with a snake has married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests in India’s Orissa state, reports said on Friday.

Bimbala Das wore a silk sari for the ceremony on Wednesday at Atala village near the Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar.

Priests chanted mantras to seal the union, but the snake failed to come out of a nearby anthill where it lives, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said.

A brass replica snake stood in for the hesitant groom.

“Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way,” Das, 30, told the agency.

“Whenever I put milk near the anthill where the cobra lives, it always comes out to drink.

“I always get to see it every time I go near the anthill. It has never harmed me,” she added.

Villagers welcomed the wedding in the belief that it would bring good fortune and laid on a feast for the big day.

Snakes and particularly the King Cobra are venerated in India as religious symbols worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.

Das, from a lower caste, converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra, the world’s largest venomous snake that can grow up to five meters.

“I am happy,” said her mother Dyuti Bhoi, who has two other daughters and two sons to marry off.

“Bimbala was ill,” Bhoi told local OTV channel. “We had no money to treat her. Then she started offering milk to the snake … she was cured. That made her fall in love.”

Das has moved into a hut built close to the anthill since the wedding.

Earlier this year, a tribal girl was married off to a dog on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

---

What You Can Do From Here

---

Read More Articles On These Topics Categories: Hinduism Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article Subscribe Religion News Blog RSS feed [What is this?] RSS by topic: Hinduism Read Another Article Previous entry: Woman hit by lightning while praying Next entry: Cargo Cult Clash RNB Homepage with latest headlines Find Related Information Use our custom search engines to find additional research resources on religions and cults Find Related Books Hinduism Most Popular Today Church of Scientology told to drop Churchill images I know the dark side of Scientology…I almost lost my friend when she became obsessed with it

---

Share This Article

---

To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:

• Post a link on your blog or website:
  
• Send in an email or IM:
  
• Post on a forum:
  

Search for information about (religious) cults, cult-like organizations, -- as well as paranormal-, New Age, and pseudoscientific claims -- across 260+ websites, blogs and forums dedicated to cult research, spiritual abuse, ex-cult counseling & support.

Note: results are listed on another domain -- CounterCultSearch.com -- from which you can easily return here.

Search for apologetics articles, books, videos, and other research resources across 135 Christian apologetics websites and blogs.

Note: results are listed on another domain -- ApologeticsSearch.com -- from which you can easily return here.