A five-foot monocled cobra slithered through a throng¹ of barefoot children one afternoon recently. Not even the toddlers recoiled² in fear.

'We sleep with the snakes, we eat with the snakes, we live with the snakes here,' shouted 14-year-old Chinmoy Mahji proudly. 'We are not scared.'

Talk about a snake pit. The deadly serpents are everywhere here in Mushari and its three adjoining villages, set amid muddy ponds and rice fields on the hot Bengali plains northwest of Calcutta.

A dozen yards from the assembled children, another cobra was lazily trying to swallow a frog that, under the effects of the snake's poison, had ballooned to the size of a melon. One more cobra emerged from a pond where village women washed their pots and nonchalantly made its way under a nearby house.

Samir Chatterjee, a school headmaster here, says that according to his census³, more than 3,000 cobras live just in Choto Pashla, one of the three hamlets that abut⁴ Mushari. 'Whenever I lie down in my bed, a cobra will just slide on top of me, without hurting me,' boasts Narottom Sain, a Mushari village leader.

While Mr. Sain has yet to be bitten, many others are not so lucky. The area's chief Hindu priest, Shyamal Chakraborty, says that several villagers are attacked by cobras every month.

What to do when that happens is a matter of contention⁵ here, as India's ancient ways and taboos⁷ clash with slowly encroaching modernity. Snakebites are a serious problem in India: According to estimates cited by the World Health Organization, serpent attacks kill as many as 50,000 Indians each year.

Compounding the problem is the widespread belief in the snakes' divine powers, and a religious prohibition⁸ on harming the deadly reptiles⁹. The cobra, in particular, occupies a hallowed place in the Hindu religion. The god Vishnu is often portrayed¹⁰ with a halo of cobra heads, their hoods¹¹ flaring¹², above his head. Another major Hindu god, Lord Shiva, is usually depicted¹³ with a cobra wrapped like a scarf around his neck.

According to legend widely believed here in Mushari, the monocled cobras -- black serpents with a characteristic clear circle on their hoods -- first settled in the area in the year 911, on the orders of the snake goddess Manasa.

The reptiles, one of a number of cobra species that live in India, are revered¹⁴ as incarnations of gods. Only Brahmins -- members of Hinduism's priestly caste -- are allowed to touch them. Even the skins shed by the snakes are covered by the taboo⁶. With the cult¹⁵ attracting thousands of pilgrims, Mushari's priests are eager to maintain their authority -- and the impression that their magic alone can properly treat the frequent snakebites.

'If you don't visit the doctor and just come to us, the bite will be cured in two, three days,' explains Mr. Chakraborty's son Nayan, himself a saffron-clad priest, as he plays with a hissing¹⁶ cobra on the village square. 'But if you choose to go to a doctor, your limb will swell¹⁷ up and there will be complications. We tell people that if you don't listen to god and go to a hospital, it's at your own risk.'

The priestly treatment consists of making bite victims bathe in a shallow pond by the ancient ocher-colored temple, rubbing special mud into the wound and performing incantations. In many cases, it seems to work. 'When the snake bit me three months ago, I just ran to the priest, and soon it all healed,' says 9-year-old Srabani Kundu, as she points to faint fang¹⁸ marks on her right foot.