The snake represents the introverting libido. Through introversion one is fertilized, inspired, regenerated and reborn from the God. In Hindoo philosophy this idea of creative, intellectual activity has even cosmogenic significance. The unknown original creator of all things is, according to Rigveda 10, 121, Prajâpati, the "Lord of Creation." In the various Brahmas, his cosmogenic activity was depicted in the following manner
"Prajâpati desired: 'I will procreate myself, I will be manifold.'
He performed Tapas; after he had performed Tapas he created
these worlds."
The strange conception of Tapas is to be translated,
according to Deussen,[115] as "he heated himself with his
own heat,[116] with the sense of 'he brooded, he hatched.'"
Here the hatcher and the hatched are not two, but one
and the same identical being. As Hiranyagarbha,
Prajâpati is the egg produced from himself, the world-egg,
from which he hatches himself. He creeps into himself,
he becomes his own uterus, becomes pregnant with
himself, in order to give birth to the world of multiplicity.
Thus Prajâpati through the way of introversion
changed into something new, the multiplicity of the world.
It is of especial interest to note how the most remote
things come into contact. Deussen observes:
"In the degree that the conception of Tapas (heat) becomes in
hot India the symbol of exertion and distress, the 'tapo atapyata'
began to assume the meaning of self-castigation and became related
to the idea that creation is an act of self-renunciation on the part
of the Creator."
