Tree Marriages.
We now come to discuss the curious custom of marriages to trees. This prevails widely throughout Northern India. Thus, in some parts of Kângra, if a betrothed but as yet unmarried girl can succeed in performing the marriage ceremony with the object of her choice round a fire made in the jungle with certain wild plants, her betrothal is annulled, and this informal marriage is recognized.[69] In the Panjâb a Hindu cannot be legally married a third time. So, if he wishes to take a third wife, he is married to a Babûl tree (Acacia Arabica), or to the Akh plant (Asclepia gigantea), first, so that the wife he subsequently marries is counted as his fourth, and the evil consequences of marrying a third time are thus avoided.[70] In Bengal, writes Dr. Buchanan,[71] “Premature marriage is considered so necessary to Hindu ideas of prosperity, that even the unfortunate children who are brought up for prostitution are married with all due ceremony to a plantain tree, before the age when they would be defiled by remaining single.” In the North-Western Provinces, among some of the higher classes of Brâhmans, if a man happens to lose one or two wives and is anxious to marry a third, the ceremony of his third marriage is first gone through with an Akh plant. The family priest takes the intending bridegroom to the fields where there are Akh plants and repeats the marriage formula. This is known as Arka Vivâh, or Akh marriage, and it is believed that the plant itself dies soon after being married. In Oudh, it is very unlucky to marry a couple if the ruling stars of the youth form a more powerful combination than those of the female. The way to get out of the difficulty is to marry the girl first to a Pîpal tree. In the Panjâb, rich people who have no children marry a Brâhman to a Tulasî plant. The pseudo-father of the bride treats the Brâhman ever afterwards as his son-in-law, which, it is needless to say, is a very good thing for the Brâhman.[72] If the birth of a child does not follow this ceremony, they have good reason for apprehending that a messenger from Yama, the god of death, will harass them on their way to the spirit world.
In Bombay, among the Kudva Kunbis of Gujarât, when there are certain difficulties in the marriage of a girl, she is married to a mango or some other fruit tree. Mr. Campbell[73] accounts for this on the principle that a spirit fears trees, especially fruit trees. Among another branch of the same tribe, when a girl is marriageable and a bridegroom cannot be found, the practice is to substitute a bunch of flowers, and the marriage ceremony proceeds. Next day, by which time the flowers have begun to fade, they are thrown into a well, and the bride of yesterday is considered a widow. As a widow can marry at any time without social discredit, the parents find a husband for her at their leisure.[74]
So in Bengal, the Rautiyas before the wedding go through the form of marriage to a mango tree.[75] Among the Mundâri Kols, “the bride and bridegroom are well anointed with turmeric, and wedded, not to each other, but the bride to a Mahua tree, and the groom to a mango, or both to mango trees. They are made to touch the tree with red lead, and then to clasp it, and they are tied to it.”[76] Among the Kurmîs, the bridegroom on the wedding morning is first married to a mango tree. He embraces the tree, is for a time tied to it in a peculiar manner with a thread, and he daubs it with red lead. Then the thread is removed from the tree, and is used to attach some of the leaves to the bridegroom’s wrist. The bride is similarly wedded to a Mahua tree.[77]
Similarly in the Himâlayas, if anyone desires to marry a third time, whether his other wives are alive or not, he is married to the Akh plant. He builds an altar near the plant, or brings a branch home and plants it near the altar. The regular marriage ceremony is then performed, and a thread is wound ten times round the plant with the recitation of appropriate verses. Four days the plant remains where it was fixed, and on the fifth day the celebrant is entitled to commence the marriage ceremony with his third wife. Similarly, a person is married to an earthen jar, when from some conjunction of the planets the omens are unfavourable, or when, from some bodily or mental defect, no one will marry the boy or girl. The usual ceremonies are gone through, and the neck of the boy or girl is connected by a string with the neck of the vessel, and water is sprinkled over them with a brush made of five leaves.[78]
In Nepâl every Newâr girl is, while a child, married to a Bel fruit, which, after the ceremony, is thrown into some sacred river. When she arrives at puberty a husband is selected for her, but should the marriage prove unpleasant, she can divorce herself by the simple process of placing a betel-nut under her husband’s pillow, and walking off. Widows are allowed to re-marry; in fact, a Newâr woman is never a widow, as the Bel fruit to which she first married is supposed to be always in existence.[79]
Before considering a possible explanation of this group of customs, we may note other instances of pseudo-marriages. We have, in the first place, instances of the marriage of girls to a god. “In the Gurgâon District, in the Rewâri Tahsîl, at the village of Bâs Doda, a fair is held on the 26th of Chait and the two following days. I was told that formerly girls of the Dhînwar class used to be married to the god at these festivals, and that they always died soon afterwards, but that of late years the practice has been discontinued.”[80]
Again, we have some traces of the allied custom of compulsory religious prostitution. It is said that Santâl girls are required to submit to compulsory prostitution once in their lives at Telkûpi Ghât. “It is said that the custom originally arose from the killing of a girl by her parents for incontinence; since when, girls have been permitted to do as they please, and what was once permissive has become compulsory.”[81] There is no reference to this in Colonel Dalton’s account of the Santâls, and Mr. Beglar’s authority is not quite satisfactory. But on the analogy of similar rites in Babylon, as described by Herodotus, it is very likely that such a custom once prevailed. There is some evidence that similar customs once prevailed at the temple of Jaggannâth and other Indian shrines.
We have, again, folk-tale references to the same custom in a tradition of the Vallabhachârya sect of the daughter of a banker, who, by her devotion to him, won the love of the god Krishna in the form of an image. Finally the deity revealed himself, and she went with him to Brindaban and remained with her divine husband till he carried her off to the heaven of Vishnu. This, however, is hardly perhaps more than an example of the mystic union of the god with his worshippers, which forms such a large part of the Vaishnava hagiology, and is familiar in the tales of Krishna and the Gopîs.