The ouroboros is a symbol for a cycle of life, death and rebirth; the snake's skin-sloughing symbolizes the transmigration of souls.
 
Ouroboros symbolism has also been used to describe the Kundalini, (कुण्डलिनी), which in Hinduism, is a form of divine feminine energy.
 
Kundalini is a force or power associated with the divine feminine or the formless aspect of the Goddess:
 
"The divine power, Kundalini, shines like the stem of a young lotus; like a snake, coiled round upon herself she holds her tail in her mouth and lies resting half asleep as the base of the body."
 
A Vedic (Indian) text of the early 1st millennium BCE (2,000 years ago) compares the nature of the rituals to "a snake biting its own tail."
 
In Western literature, the ouroboros snake first appears as an alchemic symbol in the 3rd-century texts (Leyden Papyrus and The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra.) To early alchemists, the ouroboros symbolized eternity and the unity of all matter.
 
Interestingly, the history of France has also been marked by the appearance of the Ouroboros serpent. You can see this symbol on the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.