Brāhman wedding in Gujarāt, the earth is used for making the altars used in the rite known as Grihasāntī, or “planet-soothing,” by which the dangerous influence of some planet, which would mar the success of the marriage, is removed.[1] The intention of these ceremonies is probably to convey to the married pair the fertilizing Mana of Mother Earth.
When Mother Earth is thus regarded by the Hindus as a living creature they unconsciously confirm the latest conclusions of science. The well-known French agronomist, M. G. Dumont, has recently shown that the Earth is a living organism, and that the earthy elements are merely the skeleton which holds together its respiratory, digestive and muscular portions. Respiration is the interchange of gases, the digestive apparatus the interspaces supplying nutritive liquids to the plant roots, the muscular action the contractions which excite coagulation, and which are due to the colloidal membranes covering the earth particles. Folklore, as is often the case, is thus justified by the conclusions of science.
Thus far we have been considering Mother Earth in her benign, kindly aspects, as the maintainer and giver of fertility to men, animals, and plants, the patron goddess of agriculture, in which respects she is the counterpart of the Hellenic and other deities of the West. In this aspect she is closely connected with the cult of trees, which force their roots into her bosom, and draw support from her, while by their branches they link her with the spirits of the air. So in Greece, Europa, “the broad-faced,” the equivalent of the Hindu Prithivi, probably a Cretan-Boeotian form of the Earth Goddess, was worshipped at Gortyna in a sacred tree.[2] In India, as we have seen, she is associated with the communal tree, the planting of which is the first act in the foundation of a new village. But, at the same time, the tree acts as a prophylactic, because it
