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BUDDHIST INDIA
in which the most important facts as to tree. worship throughout the world are collected and classified, we find that a number of fancies about trees, varying from the most naïve results of the savage soul-theories up to philosophic speculations of an advanced kind, have been widely current among all forms of faith, and have been traced also in India.
Now, so far as I can call to mind, none of these fancies (with one interesting exception, on which see below) is referred to in the principal early books setting out the Buddhist doctrine—the Four Nikāyas, for instance, and the Sutta Nipāta. But in older and later documents several of these beliefs can be found. The conclusion is obvious. Those beliefs as to tree-worship mentioned in pre-Buddhistic literature forined part, at the time of the rise of Buddhism, of the religion of the people. They were rejected by the early Buddhists. But they continued to form part of the religion of those of the people who were uninfluenced by the new teaching. And one or two of them found their way back into one or other of the later schools of Buddhism.
Already in the Vedas themselves we have a num. ber of passages in which trees are invoked as deities.' This is decisive of the attitude of mind of the Aryans in early times in India. For it was, of course, not the trees as such, but the souls or spirits supposed to dwell within them, to haunt them, that were looked upon as gods. That this notion sur
Sec Macdonell, Vedic Jythology, p. 157.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
