spirits, and in this hallowed place offerings to the gods are made.[1]
Here, then, among the lower races, is surely evidence enough to put on their true historic footing the rites of tree and grove which are found flourishing or surviving within the range of Semitic or Aryan culture. Mentions in the Old Testament record the Canaanitish Ashera-worship, the sacrifice under every green tree, the incense rising beneath oak and willow and shady terebinth, rites whose obstinate revival proves how deeply they were rooted in the old religion of the land.[2] The evidence of these Biblical passages is corroborated by other evidence from Semitic regions, as in the lines by Silius Italicus which mention the prayer and sacrifice in the Numidian holy groves, and the records of the council of Carthage which show that in the 5th century, an age after Augustine's time, it was still needful to urge that the relics of idolatry in trees and groves should be done away.[3] From the more precise descriptions which lie within the range of Aryan descent and influence, examples may be drawn to illustrate every class of belief and rite of the forest. Modern Hinduism is so largely derived from the religions of the non-Aryan indigenes, that we may fairly explain thus a considerable part of the tree-worship of modern India, as where in the Birbhûm district of Bengal a great annual pilgrimage is made to a shrine in a jungle, to give offerings of rice and money and sacrifice animals to a certain ghost who dwells in a bela-tree.[4] In thoroughly Hindu districts may be seen the pippala (Ficus religiosa) planted as the Village tree, the 'chaityataru' of Sanskrit
- ↑ Dalton, 'Kols,' in 'Tr. Eth. Soc.' vol. vi. p. 34. Bastian, 'Oestl. Asien.' vol. i. p. 134, vol. iii. p. 252.
- ↑ Deut. xii. 3; xvi. 21. Judges vi. 25. 1 Kings xiv. 23; xv. 13; xviii. 19. 2 Kings xvii. 10; xxiii. 4. Is. lvii. 5. Jerem. xvii. 2. Ezek. vi. 13; xx. 28. Hos. iv. 13, &c., &c.
- ↑ Sil. Ital. Punica, iii. 675, 690. Harduin, Acta Conciliorum, vol. i. For further evidence as to Semitic tree-and-grove worship, see Movers, 'Phönizier,' vol. i. p. 560, &c.
- ↑ Hunter, 'Rural Bengal,' pp. 131, 194.
