V.IIP powers, though they usually take animal forms when acting as animate beings. Very old and is the belief that a inan's individual life may be de posited in a mountain or tree„ and be destroyed only when the divine object is overthrown by it higher divinity.
Dr.NDRIMATItY. Under this word maybe included the 'worship of trees,' strict sense, and the worship of plants, phytolatry, in the general sense of worship of Iffijeets of the vegetable world. The terms, however, are not quite coter minous, since plants are revered only as totems or as useful objects, while trees are worshiped a variety of reasons, either because they are totems, or because they are useful, or beautiful. or fearsome. or as symbols. in this phase of worship it is SOMPtillIPS difficult to decide whether the divinity resides in the object or is the object. Both views were held by different members of races. Thus this question became a sub ject of debate between the Brahmans :/11(1 the Buddhists. The former held what is undoubtedly the more primitive belief, that the tree itself was an animate person. The Buddhist held, as did the Greek, that there was a spirit (dryad) in the tree. The worship of some form of the vegetable creation was general in antiquity. and has existed almost to the present day in Europe. Only a few handred years ago the Teutons, for example, worshiped plants and trees, as they did rocks, rivers, and mountains. Traces of this belief are still visible in popular rites and su perstitions. Both men and god, were supposed to have sprung from trees. Thus the Algonquin
Indians and the 'Fenton, both regarded the ash as the divine progenitor of men. and the another date-palm was worshiped by the Semites. as other mother trees are to-day worshiped by the Dra vidian:. There are four varieties of plant and tree worship. The vegetable god. tree, or plant is revered (a) for its peculiar virtues or 1111:11i ties:. Thus in India the smna plant was regarded as divine because of its intoxicating qualities. as is the cue(' plant in Peru: and the modern peyote cult of Mexico has the same origin. Or (b) the vegetable is a totem, examples of which are found in the divine porn and coeoanut of America and Samoa. respectively. Thirdly (e), the tree or plant is worshiped as a spirit in the material, as is the ease in dryad-worship in Grceee and India. Finally (dl. the spirit revered is that of reproduction as shown in the vegetable. of which class are the corn mother of the Teutons and the another date-palm of the Babylonians. To these must be added the sacred grove, as revered by Dravidians, Teutons. Greeks. Romans. etc. The trees of the grove are collectively sacred and may be individually divine: but the grove itself is really a temple of divinities. not a divinity per sr. Tree-marriages, still common among the wild tribes of India, are a survival of totemism. To avoid the ill Inek of a third marriage. even civilized llindus well a tree as a third wife.