Tree and plant worship is quite as antique as is snake-worship. For not only is soma a divine plant, and not only does Yama sit in heaven under his 'fair tree' (above, p. 129), but 'trees and plants' are the direct object of invocation in the Rig Veda (V. 41. 8); and the Brahmanic law enjoins upon the faithful to fling an offering, bali, to the great gods, to the waters, and 'to the trees';[31] as is the case in the house-ritual. We shall seek, therefore, for the origin of tree-worship not in the character of the tree, but in that of the primitive mind which deifies mountains, waters, and trees, irrespective of their nature. It is true, however, that the greater veneration due to some trees and plants has a special reason. Thus soma intoxicates: and the tulas[=i], 'holy basil,' has medicinal properties, which make it sacred not only in the Krishna-cult, but in Sicily.[32] This plant is a goddess, and is wed annually to the Ç[=a]lagr[=a]ma stone with a great feast.[33] So the çam[=i] plant is herself divine, the goddess Çam[=i]. Again, the mysterious rustle of the bo tree, pipal may be the reason for its especial veneration; as its seeming immortality is certainly the cause of the reverence given to the banian. It is not necessary, however, that any mystery should hang about a tree. The palm is tall, (Çiva's) açoka is beautiful, and no trees are more revered. But trees are holy per se. Every 'village-tree' (above, p. 374, and Mbh[=a]. ii. 5. 100) is sacred to the Hindu. And this is just what is found among the wild tribes, who revere their hut-trees and village-trees as divine, without demanding a special show of divinity. The birth-tree (as in Grecian mythology) is also known, both to Hindu sect and to wild tribe. But here also there is no basis of Aryan ideas, but of common human experience. The ancestor-tree (totem) has been noticed above in the case of the Gonds, who claim descent from trees. The Bh[=a]rs revere the (Çivaite!) bilva or bel, but this is a medicinal tree. The marriage-tree is universal in the South (the tree is the male or female ancestor), and even the Brahmanic wedding, among its secondary after-rites, is not without the tree, which is adorned as part of the ceremony.
Two points of view remain to be taken before the wild tribes are dismissed. The first is that Hindu law is primitive. Maine and Leist both cite laws as if any Hindu law were an oracle of primitive Aryan belief. This method is ripe in wrong conclusions. Most of the matter is legal, but enough grazes religion to make the point important. Even with the sketch we have given it becomes evident that Hindu law cannot be unreservedly taken as an exponent of early Brahmanic law, still less of Aryan law. For instance, Maine regards matriarchy as a late Brahmanic intrusion on patriarchy, an inner growth.[34] To prove this, he cites two late books, one being Vishnu, the Hindu law-giver of the South. But it is from the Southern wild tribes that matriarchy has crept into Hinduism, and thence into Brahmanism. Here prevails the matriarchal marriage*rite, with the first espousal to the snake-guarded tree that represents the mother's family. In many cases geographical limitations of this sort preclude the idea that the custom or law of a law-book is Aryan.[35]
The second point of view is that of the Akkadists. It is claimed by the late Lacouperie, by Hewitt, and by other well-known writers that a primitive race overran India, China, and the rest of the world, leaving behind it traces of advanced religious ideas and other marks of a higher civilization. Such a cult may have existed, but in so far as this theory rests, as in a marked degree it does rest, on etymology, the results are worthless. These scholars identify Gandharva with Gan-Eden, K[=a]çi (Benares) with the land of the sons of Kush; Gautama with Chinese ('Akkadian') gut, 'a bull,' etc. All this is as fruitful of unwisdom as was the guess-work of European savants two centuries ago. We know that the Dasyus had some religion and some civilization. Of what sort was their barbaric cult, whether Finnish (also 'Akkadian')[36] or aboriginal with themselves, really makes but little difference, so far as the interpretation of Aryanism is concerned; for what the Aryans got from the wild tribes of that day is insignificant if established as existent at all. A few legends, the Deluge and the Cosmic Tree, are claimed as Akkadian, but it is remarkable that one may grant all that the Akkadian scholars claim, and still deny that Aryan belief has been essentially affected by it.[37] The Akkadian theory will please them that cannot reconcile the Rig Veda with their theory of Brahmanic influence, but the fault lies with the theory.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The Dasyus, heathen, or pagans, are by no means a wholly uncivilized mass to the poets of the Rig Veda. They have wealth, build forts, and are recognized as living in towns or forts. We learn little about them in Brahmanic literature, except that they bury their dead and with them their trinkets. Their graves and dolmen gray-stones are still found.]
[Footnote 2: Some scholars think that the Dravidians entered from the Northwest later than the Kolarians, and, pushing them to either side of the peninsula, descended through them to the South. The fact that some Kolarian tribes closely related by language are separated (to East and West) by hundreds of miles, and have lost all remembrance of their former union, favors this view of a Dravidian wedge splitting and passing through the Kolarian mass. But all here is guess-work. The Dravidians may have been pushed on by Kolarians that entered later, while the latter may have been split by the Aryan invasion; and this seems to us more probable because the other theory does not explain why the Kolarians did not go South instead of taking to the hills of the East and West.]
[Footnote 3: The whole list of these tribes as given by
Cust, Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies,
is as follows: The Kolarians include the Sunth[=a]ls,
Mund[=a]ri Koles (Koches), Kh[=a]rians, Juangs, Korwas,
Kurs, Sav[=a]ras, Mehtos, Gadabas, P[=a]h[=a]rias; the
Dravidians include the tribes called Tamil, Telugu,
Kanarese, Malay[=a]lim, Tulu, Kudagu, Toda, Kota, Khond,
Gond, Or[=a]on, R[=a]jmah[=a]li, Keik[=a]di, Yeruk[=a]la.]
[Footnote 4: The sacrifices of the wild tribes all appear to have the object of pleasing or placating the god with food, animal or vegetable; just as the Brahmanic sacrifice is made to please, with the secondary thought that the god will return the favor with interest; then that he is bound to do so. Sin is carried away by the sacrifice, but this seems to be merely an extension of the simpler idea; the god condones a fault after an expression of repentance and good-will. What lies further back is not revealed in the early texts, though it is easy to make them fruitful in "theories of sacrifice.">[
[Footnote 5: Of course no tribe has what civilization would call a temple, but some have what answer to it, namely, a filthy hut where live the god and his priest. Yet the Gonds used to build roads and irrigate very well.]