times carried away the banks of the island where it grows, and along with such parts of the tree as had extended their roots thus far; yet what has remained is about two thousand feet in circumference, measuring round the principal stems; but the hanging branches, the roots of which have not yet reached the ground, cover a much larger extent. The chief trunks of this single tree amount to three hundred and fifty, all superior in size to the generality of our English oaks and elms; the smaller stems, forming into stronger supports, are more than three thousand; and from each of these new branches, hanging roots are proceeding, which in time will form trunks and become parents to a future progeny.

Cubeer Burr is famed throughout Hindostan for its prodigious extent, antiquity and great beauty. The Indian armies often encamp around it; and, at certain seasons, solemn Jattras or Hindoo festivals are held here, to which thousands of votaries repair from various parts of the Mogul empire. Seven thousand persons, it is said, may easily repose under its shade. There is a tradition among the natives, that this tree is three thousand years old; and there is great reason to believe it, and that it is this amazing tree that Arrian describes when speaking of the gymosophists in his book of Indian affairs. These people, he says, in summer wear no clothing. In winter they enjoy the benefit of the sun’s rays in the open air; and in summer, when the heat becomes excessive, they pass their time in moist and marshy places under large trees, which according to Nearchus, cover a circumference of five acres, and extend their branches so far that ten thousand men may easily find shelter under them.

English gentlemen, when on hunting and shooting parties, are accustomed to form extensive encampments, and to spend several weeks under this delightful pavilion of foliage, which is generally filled with a great variety of feathered songsters. This tree not only affords shelter but sustenance to all its inhabitants; being loaded with small figs of a rich scarlet colour.[6]

Trees have always been among the chief divinities of India. In the “Institutes of Menu,” chap. 3, we find directions to the Brahman for his oblations, and, after a number of preliminaries, the injunctions proceed—“Having thus, with fixed attention, offered clarified butter in all quarters, proceeding from the east in a southerly direction, to India, Yama, Varuna, and the god Soma, let him offer his gifts to animated creatures, saying, I salute the Maruts or Winds, let him throw dressed rice near the door, saying, I salute the water-gods, in water; and oil his pestle and mortar, saying, I salute the gods of large trees.”

An instance of tree worship amongst the Santals or hill tribes of Beerbhoom is recorded in Hunter’s “Annals of Rural Bengal,” as follows—“Adjoining the Santal village is a grove of their natural tree, the Sal (Shorea Robusta), which they believe to be the favourite resort of all the family gods of the little community. From its silent gloom the bygone generations watch their children and children’s children playing their several parts in life, not altogether with an unfriendly eye. Nevertheless the ghastly inhabitants of the grove are sharp critics, and deal out crooked limbs, cramps and leprosy, unless duly appeased. Several times a year the whole hamlet, dressed out in its showiest, repairs to the grove to do honour to the Lares Rurales with music and sacrifice. Men and women join hands, and, dancing in a large circle, chant songs in remembrance of the original founder of the community who is venerated as the head of the village Pantheon. Goats, red cocks, and chickens are sacrificed; and while some of the worshippers are told off to cook the flesh for the common festival at great fires, the rest separate into families and dance round the particular trees which they fancy their domestic Lares chiefly inhabit. Among the more superstitious tribes, it is customary for each family to dance round every single tree, in order that they may not by any chance omit the one in which their gods may be residing.”

CHAPTER II.

The Bael Tree—Worship of the Left Hand—Trees of the Sun and Moon—The Arbre Sec or Dry Tree—The Holy Tree of Bostam—The Bygas of the Eastern Sathpuras—Tree Worship in Mysore—The Palm Tree—Worship of the Palm at Najrau—The Tree of Ten Thousand Images—Tree Worship in Persia—Sacred Old Testament Trees—The Classics—Forests and Groves, favourite Places of Worship—Origin of Groves—Votive Offerings to Trees.

“The Bael Tree,” says Forlong, “as a representative of the triad and monad, is always offered at Lingam worship, after washing the Lingam with water and anointing it with sandal wood. The god is supposed to specially like all white flowers and cooling embrocations, which last sandal wood is held to be; and he is very commonly to be found under an umbrageous Bael, more especially if there be no fine Ficus near; failing both, the poor god is often reduced to the stump of a tree; and if that is also scarce, his votaries raise to him a karn or cairn of stones, with the prominent one in the centre, and plant a pomegranate, bits of tolsi, &c., near; and if water is available, a little garden of flowers, of which the marigolds are a favourite. My readers must not fancy that this worship is indecent, or even productive of licentiousness. It is conducted by men, women and children of modest mien, and pure and spotless lives, though at certain seasons, as in all faiths and lands, the passions are roused and the people proceed to excesses, yet Sivaism is peculiarly free from this with reference to others, not excluding Eastern Christianity. Vishnooism, which we may call the worship of The Left Hand, or female energies, is perhaps the greatest sinner in this respect. Sivaism is for the most part harshly ascetic, as regards its office-bearers and orthodox followers; yet all faiths give way at certain solar periods, and all Hindoo sects are as bad as Romans at the spring ‘hilaria or carnival,’ the more so if Ceres or Kybele is propitious, and more apparently so in countries where writings have not yet supplanted pictures. Amongst all the rudest tribes of India, and even throughout Rajpootana, and with the strict Jain sects who abhor Lingam worship, these still shew their parent root by devoting some fifteen days annually, after the harvests are gathered in, to the most gross form of Lingam worship, in which a complete naked image of a man, called ‘Elajee,’ is built of clay and decorated with wreaths of flowers, &c., and placed in prominent situations. In most parts of Rajpootana, this male image exists at every city and village gate, but it is not rendered conspicuously indecent until the hooly or harvest enjoyments; and low and degrading as these are, reminding us of our purely animal frame, yet no Hindoo practices of harvest times are so gross as I have seen practised at the harvest homes or midnight revelries of our own country.”

The oracular trees of the Sun and Moon, somewhere on the confines of India, appear in all the fabulous histories of Alexander from the Pseudo-Callisthenes downwards. Thus Alexander is made to tell the story “Then came some of the townspeople and said, ‘We have to show thee something passing strange, O King, and worth thy visiting; for we can show thee trees that talk with human speech.’ So they led me to a certain park, in the midst of