 Manasa first appears in the Hindu text Atharva Veda as a snake goddess . In the Puranas , she was recognized as a daughter of sage Kashyapa and Kadru , the mother of all Nāgas . By the 14th century , Manasa was identified as the goddess of fertility and marriage rites and was assimilated into the Shaiva pantheon as a relative of Shiva . Myths glorified her by describing that she saved Shiva after he drank poison , and venerated her as the " remover of poison " . Her popularity grew and spread to Southern India , and her cult began to rival Shaivism itself . As a consequence , stories attributing Manasa 's birth to Shiva emerged and ultimately Shaivism adopted this indigenous goddess into the Brahmanical tradition of mainstream Hinduism . 
