Story of Nation Buddhist India

SR No.: 035274
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: T Fisher Unwin Ltd
Publication Year: 1916
Total Pages: 356
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 88 MB

Page 248

RELIGION—ANIMISM
227
vived down to the rise of Buddhism is shown in the Upanishads. If the soul leaves the tree, the tree withers, but the soul does not die. These souls may have dwelt, and may dwell again, in human bodies. And long after the rise of Buddhism ideas associated with this belief are often referred to. Offerings are made to these tree-spirits,' even luman sacrifices are offered,' they were consulted as oracles, and expected to give sons and wealth, they injure those who injure the trees in which they dwell," and they are pleased when garlands are hung upon the branches, lamps are lighted round it, and Bali offerings are made (that is food is thrown), at the foot of the tree.' The brahmin priests, too, are enjoined in their books of sacred law and custom to throw such Bali offerings to the tree-spirits.
All the above is tree-worship-or more correctly dryad-worship-pure and simple. When we find the world-soul spoken of as a tree that has its roots in heaven,' that is poetry, a simile based perhaps on the mystery of growth, but still only a simile. The idea of the Kalpa-rukkha, the Wishing Tree, which will give one all one wants, has not as yet been traced back earlier than some centuries after the date we are considering."
But Fergusson's explanation of the old monuments i Chand. Up. vi. 11 ; see Jāt. 4. 154. ? Kāțhaka Up. v. 7. 97. R. A. S. 1901, p. 886.
* Ját. 5. 472, 474, 188. - Jāt. Nos. 98, 109, 307, 193.
6 Jāt. 1. 210, 353. ? Jāt. 3. 23 ; 4. 153.
8 Manu, iii, 58, etc. 9 Kathaka Up. vi. 1; Svet. Up., iii. 9.
10 The earliest reference to this idea I have been able to find is the Ayāranga, p. 127 (see Jacobi, Faina Sutrus, 1. 197).