the Vedic system which endowed all created things with a spirit and life--a
doctrine which modern Hinduism largely extended[16]."
Thus when food is cooked, an oblation is made by the Hindu to trees,
with an appropriate invocation before the food is eaten. The Bo tree is
extensively worshipped in India, and the Toolsee plant (Basil) is held sacred
to all gods--no oblation being considered sacred without its leaves. Certain
of the Chittagong hill tribes worship the bamboo,[17] and Sir John Lubbock,
quoting from Thompson's "Travels in the Himalaya," tells us that in the
Simla hills the Cupressus toridosa is regarded as a sacred tree. Further
instances might be enumerated, so general is this form of religious belief. In
an interesting and valuable paper by a Bengal civilian--intimately
acquainted with the country and people[18]--the writer says:--"The contrast
between the acknowledged hatred of trees as a rule by the Bygas,[19] and
their deep veneration for certain others in particular, is very curious. I have
seen the hillsides swept clear of forests for miles with but here and there a
solitary tree left standing. These remain now the objects of the deepest
veneration. So far from being injured they are carefully preserved, and
receive offerings of food, clothes, and flowers from the passing Bygas, who
firmly believe that tree to be the home of a spirit." To give another
illustration[20], it appears that in Beerbhoom once a year the whole capital
repairs to a shrine in the jungle, and makes simple offerings to a ghost who
dwells in the Bela tree. The shrine consists of three trees--a Bela tree on the
left, in which the ghost resides, and which is marked at the foot with blood;
in the middle is a Kachmula tree, and on the right a Saura tree. In spite of
the trees being at least seventy years old, the common people claim the
greatest antiquity for the shrine, and tradition says that the three trees that
now mark the spot neither grow thicker nor increase in height, but remain
the same for ever.
A few years ago Dr. George Birwood contributed to the Athenaeum
some interesting remarks on Persian flower-worship. Speaking of the
Victoria Gardens at Bombay, he says:--"A true Persian in flowing robe of
blue, and on his head his sheep-skin hat--black, glossy, curled, the fleece of
Kar-Kal--would saunter in, and stand and meditate over every flower he
saw, and always as if half in vision. And when the vision was fulfilled, and
the ideal flower he was seeking found, he would spread his mat and sit
before it until the setting of the sun, and then pray before it, and fold up his
mat again and go home. And the next night, and night after night, until that
particular flower faded away, he would return to it, and bring his friends in
ever-increasing troops to it, and sit and play the guitar or lute before it, and
they would all together pray there, and after prayer still sit before it sipping
sherbet, and talking the most hilarious and shocking scandal, late into the
moonlight; and so again and again every evening until the flower died.
Sometimes, by way of a grand finale, the whole company would suddenly
rise before the flower and serenade it, together with an ode from Hafiz, and
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