Tejaji

Tejaji is a folk deity of Rajasthan, worshipped especially by the Jat agricultural communities of Marwar and eastern Rajasthan, with a following extending into Malwa and Haryana. Tradition makes him a warrior of Kharnal, in Nagaur district, and places his life in the eleventh century. He is invoked above all against snakebite, and his shrines are found across the countryside wherever farmers work land that serpents share.

The legend

The defining episode of his story is a promise kept absolutely. On his way to recover stolen cattle, the tradition runs, Tejaji encountered a serpent and pledged to return and offer himself to its bite once his task was done. He came back wounded from the fighting, and when the snake objected that his body was already torn, he offered his tongue. Faithfulness of this order, sealed in death, made him a god; the serpent is said to have blessed him so that those who invoke his name would be protected from snakebite.

Worship

At Tejaji's shrines, devotees bitten by snakes have a protective thread, the tanti, tied in his name, and healing is sought through his oracles. His great fair is held at Parbatsar in Nagaur district on Teja Dashami, in the bright half of Bhadrapada (August–September), one of Rajasthan's major cattle fairs. His images typically show a mounted warrior with drawn sword, a serpent striking at his tongue.