TYPES OF WORSHIP

Song of the Flower

I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth; I was
Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with
My beautiful colors, and the air
Is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of
Night watch over me, and as I
Awaken I stare at the sun, which is
The only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
The voices of the birds, and dance
To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.

I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath;
I am the memory of a moment of happiness;
I am the last gift of the living to the dead;
I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.

But I look up high to see only the light,
And never look down to see my shadow.
This is wisdom which man must learn.
Khalil Gibran





TYPES OF WORSHIP:

In the religious development of the humans we can see five major stages: (i) animism, (ii) spiriticism, (iii) polytheism and (iv) monotheism and (v) at a tangent and at a higher plane pantheism. Primitive humans practised animism, worshipped natural phenomena, animals and plants Spiriticism is even now prevalent among tribes all over the world and similar to Shamanism, a term used widely now. Shamans are tribal spirit men and they are the link between their spirits/ gods and the commons in the community. Polytheism was prevalent in all ancient civilizations-Indian, Greek, Roman, Egyptian etc. In all such civilizations many gods and goddesses were worshipped. Monotheism became widespread with the spread of Christianity and Islam. Hinduism is the only example still pursuing a Mono-polytheistic path of religion. Here there is a ‘decentralization’ of the functions of gods- the three functions- creation, sustenance and destruction- are with the three prime Gods, the trinities, Brhama, Vishnu and Shiva. Then there are other gods and goddesses, having specific attributes, presiding deities of various human aspects of life and existence. They are worshipped and propitiated for specific purposes according to the wishes of the worshipper. You know that people worship Vighneswara for the removal of all obstacles, Lakshmi for wealth and prosperity, Saraswathi for vidya or learning and fine arts and so on. But all gods and goddesses are also manifestations of a single principle, the Ultimate, Paraashakthi. Everything (including all gods and goddesses) are manifestations of this Paraashakthi and into which everything merges at the end. Hinduism has a profound and majestic philosophy, touching upon all phases of human activities interpreting everything in terms of the Paramatma –Jeevatma concept, which itself is another manifestation of the Ultimate and derived from it. Ancient India’s profound utterances like Tat-twam-asi and Aham Brahmasmi emanated from this profound understanding that man being the manifestation of the ultimate is not different from It (the Ultimate). And when we realize that everything in this Universe is the manifestation of the Ultimate (Parashakthi), we also come to the zenith of Pantheism, visualizing the light of God the Ultimate, in everything, and therefore all organisms have the same status and right for existence on this earth.

Tree and plant worship is animism and it existed in its most vibrant form in India and the tradition still continues. Ancients believed that trees and animals too have souls; they have faculties like the capacity to converse and visualize the events around and so on and so forth. But the link between the ancient traditions and the modern generation is very weak; never the less one can discern this link even now. The impacts of Brahmanism from the early centuries have modified the animistic practices greatly.

Worship of plants still remains common in India, especially among the rural communities, and a variety of traditions and practices are still prevalent. At one level we have the village deity –Jagratha devata- or a deity for a small village forest (Vana devata) protecting and safeguarding the inhabitants of the village and worshipped by all irrespective of cast and creed. On the other hand there are the exclusive worship places or temples where members of other communities and even other sects of the same community are not permitted. Many such worship places are also associated with serpent worship and such temples are often physically associated with a tree – like a neem, or peepal or banyan. It is an established fact that tree worship and serpent worship are early stages, through which the human race passed. These are the lowest forms of worship, but at the same time the tree worship also has a higher level of symbolism. Swami Vivekandnada said (and I quote):
‘Tree worship and serpent worship always go together. There is the tree of knowledge. There must always be the tree, and the tree is somehow connected with the serpent. These are the oldest forms of worship. Even there you find that some particular tree or some particular stone is worshipped not all trees and stones in the world…. These are low states of worship, and yet worship. We all have to pass through them. It is only from an intellectual standpoint that they are not good enough. In our hearts we cannot get rid of them….
….There is still a higher order of formal worship- the world of symbolism… There are all sorts of symbols all over the world… there is some truth in symbolism. There cannot be any falsehood without some truth behind it… There is the symbolic form of worship in different religions.”

“A living example of tree and nature worship and its association with goddess and serpent worship is seen in the case of the sacred groves in India. Sacred groves are small patches of forests or groves of trees and associated vegetation, protected by local communities as being the residing places of deities. They vary in area from a hectrare to a few square kilometres and are the sites of socio-religious and socio-cultural rituals of associated communities. Such sacred groves are also micro- reservoirs of valuable plant and animal diversity.

In the past sacred groves were maintained in most parts of the worlds, including Europe. Many studies exist of the famous Mediterranean sacred groves of the past. The ancient Greeks and Roman landscapes were dotted with hundreds of sacred places that are associated with a grove of trees. Such small groves were the abodes of ‘nature spirits’ or ‘tree spirits’. Pliny the elder, who lived in the first century AD, indicated that ‘trees were the first temples of Gods, and even now, simple country people dedicate a tree of exceptional height to a god. ..’ The Roman mythology has ample indications of personification of plant spirits. Humans change to trees and vice versa. For the Greeks the formidable goddess Artimis was the protector of forests, wilderness and and wild life, and wilderness itself was then considered sacred. In the centuries that followed sacred groves vanished from the European landscape due to a variety of resonas such as rapid urbanisation, flourishing timber industry for a variety of purposes, use of large quantity of wood for house construction and so on. The last nail was driven by the Christian church. The chirstian church in its formativce years and in the subsequebnt middle ages, considered anything that was non-christian as pagan and destroyed them sytematically.
In India we still maintain the sacred groves as part of our socio-religios life. Many commnities in India still practice the custom of performing rituals and ceremonies to appease the presiding deity of the sacred grove in order to ensure the well being of the community. Such sacred groves often define the cultural and ethenic identity of the associated community. The sacred groves started their journey from the pre-agrarian community of primitive humans and their importance has been repeatedly emphasized by many anthropologists. They are the storehouses of biodiversity, of medicinal plants, and they also provide the water needs of the near by community. Many groves are associated with streams and ponds and the deep tree root sysytem functions like a sponge to absorb and retain water. Some estimates mention that 100,000 to 150,000 sacred groves exist in the Indian subcontintnet even now, forming a veritable store house of natural biodiversity.

In earlier times in Kerala it was a common practice to demarcate and maintain small patches of land having a few trees as an abode of mother goddess and and/ or serpent goddess. Once many such ‘Kavus” dotted the landscape of Kerala. It was then a practice to light an oil lamp every evening in front of the ‘kavu’. Naturally they were the focal points of worship before the temples were built.

Many workers tried to study the evolution of worship in human race, like Frazer, Rendell Harris, Fowler etc., and they had documented the nature and types of tree /plant worship in many primitive as well the modern societies. They have documented how among the ancient Greeks and Romans the oak, the apple the laurel, the mistelote etc. became symbols of their gods and goddesses. It was the tree worship that gradually evolved into the polytheistic form of worship. John Stewart Collis in his book The Triumph of Tree writes (and I quote):
‘Today the tree is the body, tomorrow the abode of a spirit- animism turns into polytheism. Thus we see the wild Huntsman of North America known as Heno, riding the clouds and splitting the forest trees with his thunderbolt; and then we see him later, gathering the clouds together and pouring down warm rains- as a god of agriculture. Many simple spirits developed into a general spirit of vegetation, and often enough in the primitive mind several misconceptions existed at the same time’.
Let me quote a passage from Frazer’s famous book ‘The Golden Bough’:
‘When a tree comes to be viewed, no longer as the body of the tree-spirit, but simply as its abode which it can quit at pleasure, an important advance has been made in religious thought. Animism is passing into polytheism. In other words, instead of regarding each tree as a living and conscious being, man now sees in it merely a lifeless, inert mass, tenanted for a longer or shorter time by a supernatural being who, as he can pass freely from tree to tree, thereby enjoys a certain right of possession or lordship over the trees, and, ceasing to be a tree-soul, becomes a forest god. As soon as the tree-spirit is thus in a measure disengaged from each particular tree, he begins to change his shape and assume the body of a man, in virtue of a general tendency of early thought to clothe all abstract spiritual beings in concrete human form. Hence in classical art the sylvan deities are depicted in human shape, their woodland character being denoted by a branch or some equally obvious symbol. But this change of shape does not affect the essential character of the tree-spirit. The powers which he exercised as a tree-soul incorporate in a tree, he still continues to wield as a god of trees. This I shall now attempt to prove in detail. I shall show, first, that trees considered as animate beings are credited with the power of making the rain to fall, the sun to shine, flocks and herds to multiply, and women to bring forth easily; and, second, that the very same powers are attributed to tree-gods conceived as anthropomorphic beings or as actually incarnate in living men.’
Frazer cites examples from across the continets and socities to show this evolution of tree worship from the primitive nature worship to polytheistic form and the tree gods evolved from the form a tree to that of a stylised human male or female form. Frazer writes:
‘Again, the tree-spirit makes the herds to multiply and blesses women with offspring. In Northern India the Emblica officinalis is a sacred tree. On the eleventh of the month Phalgun (February) libations are poured at the foot of the tree, a red or yellow string is bound about the trunk, and prayers are offered to it for the fruitfulness of women, animals, and crops. Again, in Northern India the coconut is esteemed as one of the most sacred fruits, and is called Sriphala, or the fruit of Sri, the goddess of prosperity. It is the symbol of fertility and all through Upper India is kept in shrines and presented by the priests to women who desire to become mothers. In the town of Qua, near Old Calabar, there used to grow a palm-tree which ensured conception to any barren woman who ate a nut from its branches. In Europe the May-tree or May-pole is apparently supposed to possess similar powers over both women and cattle. ........................................................................................
In the Tuhoe tribe of Maoris the power of making women fruitful is ascribed to trees. These trees are associated with the navel-strings of definite mythical ancestors, as indeed the navel-strings of all children used to be hung upon them down to quite recent times. A barren woman had to embrace such a tree with her arms, and she received a male or a female child according as she embraced the east or the west side. The common European custom of placing a green bush on May Day before or on the house of a beloved maiden probably originated in the belief of the fertilising power of the tree-spirit. In some parts of Bavaria such bushes are set up also at the houses of newly-married pairs, and the practice is only omitted if the wife is near her confinement; for in that case they say that the husband has “set up a May-bush for himself.” Among the South Slavonians a barren woman, who desires to have a child, places a new chemise upon a fruitful tree on the eve of St. George’s Day. Next morning before sunrise she examines the garment, and if she finds that some living creature has crept on it, she hopes that her wish will be fulfilled within the year. Then she puts on the chemise, confident that she will be as fruitful as the tree on which the garment has passed the night. Among the Kara-Kirghiz barren women roll themselves on the ground under a solitary apple-tree, in order to obtain offspring. Lastly, the power of granting to women an easy delivery at child-birth is ascribed to trees both in Sweden and Africa. In some districts of Sweden there was formerly a bardträd or guardian-tree (lime, ash, or elm) in the neighbourhood of every farm. No one would pluck a single leaf of the sacred tree, any injury to which was punished by ill-luck or sickness. Pregnant women used to clasp the tree in their arms in order to ensure an easy delivery. In some negro tribes of the Congo region pregnant women make themselves garments out of the bark of a certain sacred tree, because they believe that this tree delivers them from the dangers that attend child-bearing. The story that Leto clasped a palm-tree and an olive-tree or two laurel-trees, when she was about to give birth to the divine twins Apollo and Artemis, perhaps points to a similar Greek belief in the efficacy of certain trees to facilitate delivery.’
I have given this passage from Frazer to indicate that all over the world in former times tree worship was mostly associated with fertility cult and that such believes form an important step in the evolution of tree worship. Even now fertility cult remains very much alive and perhaps even prodominate, and that the many types of rituals and offerings in temples of India provide ample evidence for the importance of such worship in our country.
Even in a country like India with an unbroken cultural history of over six thousand years, it is not easy to trace the development of tree worship through the ages. Trilochan Pande while discussing tree worship in ancient India writes ( I quote):
‘…..however the cult seems to be a part of Nature-worship in the beginning. The aborigines and primitive people of this land must have adored the stars, the sky, the moon, the forests, the trees, the rivers etc., in their own ways and when the Aryans entered India through the northern mountains, they brought with them some what different concepts regarding the phenomenon of nature. Then followed the admixture of religious practices and manners of worship that naturally affected the society in those days. In due course of time, this admixture was responsible to a great extent for developing a new pattern of popular religion. Under such circumstances it was but natural
for the Nature- worship including the tree worship to be influenced by diverse currents that are markable even today’

A stream of worship of plants can be traced from the Rig Vedic times to the later epic period and further through the successive centuries. Soma was the first plant held sacred and then Aswattha, Vata and Bilwa, and this ‘Phytopantheon’ grew into what we see in later Puranas and other religious practices. I remember a passage in Matsya Purana which formulates the proper ceremony for planting trees:
‘…Clean the soil and water it. Decorate trees with garlands, burn incense in front of them and place one pitcher filled with water by the side of each tree. As you offer prayers and oblations to the sacrificial fire, do likewise for the tree. By singing benedictive songs and reciting hymns from the Rig, Yajur and Sama Vedas sprinkle holy water on the tree from the pitcher kept nearby. Water the plants four times a day and offer oblations with seeds of mustard, barley and sesamum. Kindle fire from palaasha wood. After worshipping them in this way, celebrate the actual planting. He who plant even one tree, goes straight to heaven and obtains the highest perfection. ‘.

The great importance attached to tree planting by the ancient Indians is exemplified in various puranas. In Matsya Purana we see:
‘If anybody plant at least one tree he will be able to stay in heaven of Indra for thirty thousand years. The planter of trees liberates same number of his past and future sins, attains the highest perfection and never reborn on earth’.

Agni Purana says:
‘ .. The plantation of trees and construction of pleasure garden (for the public) are conducive to purgation of sin and enjoyment of prosperity. ‘

Vayu Purana stresses:
‘… He never goes to hell who plants an aswattha, a pitchumanda (neem) or a banyan or ten jasmines or two pomegranates or five mango trees. Never cut down trees that bear flowers and fruits if you desire the increase of your family or your wealth and your future happiness’.

Padma Purana mentions:
‘…Plants are sons to a son less man, therefore plant aswattha tree, for it does the work of thousand sons’.

There is a well known saying in Surapala’s Vrikshayurveda:
‘Dasakupasama vaapi, dasavaapisama hrada
Dasahradasama putro, dasaputrasama druma’.
One vaapi (tank) is as good as ten wells, one lake is as good as ten tanks, one son is as good as ten lakes and one tree is as good as ten sons.
In this book the whole chapter on Tarumahima highlights the greatness of planting trees. Plants mentioned include thulasi, bilwa, aswattha, amalaki, vata, nimba, amra, sirisa, plaksha, udumbara etc.
‘Aswatthamekoni pichumandamekom
Nygrodhamekom dasachinchinikom
Kapitha bilwa malathrayam cha
Panchambravaapee narakom cha pasheyeth’
A person who plants an aswattha (peepal), a pichumanda (neem), a nygrodha (banyan), ten chinchinikom (tamarinds), one each of kapitha (lemon), bilwa (wood apple) and amala (gooseberry) and five amra (mango trees) will never see hell.
These are exhortations to the public and by linking tree planting with the attainment of heaven or moksha (salvation), the ancients successfully implemented very dynamic tree planting and conservation programmes. During the time of Manu, the composer of Manu Samhitha (or Manu Smrithi) destruction of plants became a state offense and in his code Manu provided provisions for punishment for the cutter of those trees that should be preserved.
Dr PN Ravindran