“My endeavours to obtain a clear insight into their ways were so far successful, that after a time they did not object to my being present at their domestic ceremonies, and gradually the Byga priests supplied me with all the information they could give as to their curious custom of tree culture and spirit worship.
“All that they could tell did not throw much light on the subject, for even to the Bygas themselves it is extremely vague and mysterious; but the contrast between their acknowledged hatred of trees as a rule, and their deep veneration of certain others in particular, is very curious.
“I have seen hill-sides 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, and receive offerings of food, clothes, or flowers from the passing Byga, who firmly believes that tree to be the home of a spirit.”
Captain J. S. F. Mackenzie, some years ago, contributed a paper to the Indian Antiquary on Tree and Serpent Worship in Mysore. He said that round about Bangalose, more especially the Lal Bagh and Petta—as the native town is called—three or more stones are to be found together, having representations of serpents carved upon them. These stones are erected always under the sacred fig tree, by some pious persons, whose means and piety determine the care and finish with which they are executed. Judging from the number of the stones, the worship of the serpent appears to be more prevalent in the Bungalose district than in other parts of the province. No priest is ever in charge of them. There is no objection to men doing so, but, from the custom or from some reason—partly because the serpent is supposed to confer fertility on barren women—the worshipping of the stones, which takes place during the Gauri feast, is confined to women of all Hindu classes and creeds. The stones, when properly erected, ought to be on a built-up stone platform facing the rising sun, and under the shade of two peepul (ficus religiosa) trees—a male and female growing together, and wedded by ceremonies in every respect the same as in the case of human beings—close by, and growing in the same platform a nimb (margosa) and bipatra (a kind of wood-apple), which are supposed to be living witnesses of the marriage. The expense of performing the marriage ceremony is too heavy for ordinary persons, and so we generally find only one peepul and a nimb on the platform. By the common people these two are supposed to represent man and wife.
To speak at length of the Palm tree would require a volume—and that a bulky one—rather than a passing notice in a treatise of the most limited dimensions. So much does man owe to this tree in the east, that the inhabitants of those countries where it flourishes can conceive of no land possessing any attraction where it does not exist. An Arab woman lately visiting England once expressed herself to this effect after being shewn everything wonderful that the country had possessed, all in her estimation faded into comparative worthlessness when, in answer to her enquiry, she was told that no palm trees grew there. No tree, in consequence, has been so highly prized or been made so much of. To say that men have been simply grateful for it, or that they have reverenced it, is to stop short of the mark, they have actually deified it and rendered to it divine honours.
“A conventional form of the palm tree occurs on the Nineveh tablets, surrounded by an enclosure of palmettes, and attended by winged deities, or ministers holding the pine-cone symbol of life, which in Assyrian sculpture takes the place of the crux-ansata in the hands of the Egyptian deities.
“The palmette passed from the Assyrians to the Greeks, and formed the crowning ornament of their most beautiful temples. It appears also to have been a symbol among the Etruscans, and, together with the palm tree, will be found on Etruscan sacred utensils.”[7]
Sir William Ousley, from whose travels we quote in other parts of this volume, describes the tree worship at Najran in Arabia, in which the tree was a palm or Sacred Date, having its regular priests, festivals, rites and services, and he quotes from a manuscript of the ninth century after Christ, and adds this note from a writer on Indian and Japanese symbols of divinity. “The trunk of a tree on whose top sits Deus the supreme Creator. Some other object might be worthy of observation; but I fix my attention on the trunk of a tree. Moreover, whether you go to the Japanese or to the Thibetans, everywhere will meet you green tree worship (which has been) transmitted and preserved as symbolic perhaps of the creation and preservation of the world.”
This passage, in the opinion of Forlong, shows clearly the Lingam signification of the trunk:—“The Koreish tribe, from which the Arabian prophet sprang, were from earliest known times worshippers of the palm tree, and here, as in other lands, had it been succeeded by the Lingam, and latterly by solar and ancestral worship. The Arabs used to hang on the palm not only garments or pieces of garments, but arms or portions of their warrior gear, thereby showing that they saw in the palm virility—a Herakles or Mercury.”[8]
A very remarkable tree found in Thibet was described by Abbé Huc in his travels in that and other countries in the years 1844-6, it was called the “Tree of Ten Thousand Images,” and his account of it is as follows—“The mountain at the foot of which Tsong-Kaba was born, became a famous place of pilgrimage. Lamas assembled there from all parts to build their cells, and thus by degrees was formed that flourishing Lamasery, the fame of which extends to the remotest confines of Tartary. It is called Kounboum, from two Thibetian words signifying Ten Thousand Images, and having allusion to the tree which, according to the legend, sprang from Tsong-Kaba’s hair, and bears a Thibetian character on each of its leaves.”