Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 693

AN ARBOREOUS WEDDING
653
inaugural ceremony is gone through, called Aswatta pratishta,
This ceremony,
or the consecration of the aswatta tree.
which is an elaborate and costly one, possesses the virtue
of transforming the tree into a divinity by inducting Vishnu
The Brahmins assert that untold blessings will be
into it.
showered upon any one who is willing to bear the expense.
I have already described, in the chapters on the Sandhya
and on Marriage, the manner in which this tree is worshipped,
and the honours that are paid to it. Sometimes it is invested,
like a Brahmin, with the triple cord, the very same cere-
monies being performed. And sometimes it is solemnly
Generally a ve/pu or margosa tree l is selected
married.
for its spouse, and occasionally a plantain or banana tree.
Almost the same formalities are observed for this curious
marriage as in the case of a marriage between Brahmins.
Here and there, on the high-roads and elsewhere, the aswatta
and vepu trees may be seen planted side by side on little
mounds. This union is not an accidental one, but the result
Not thirty yards from the
of an actual marriage ceremony.
modest hut where I wrote these pages were two of these
Their
trees, under whose shade I have often reclined.
trunks were so closely entwined that they had become
incorporated one with another. The inhabitants of the
village could remember to have seen them planted together
some fifty years before, and said that they had been present
at the wedding festivities, which lasted several days, and
were celebrated at the expense of a wealthy person of the
neighbourhood at a cost of more than 1,500 rupees.
Such, then, are the kind of good works which Hindus
perform in order to obtain the pardon of their sins in this
world and to ensure their happiness in the next and such
is the state of degradation to which the Brahmins, so
haughty, presumptuous, and infatuated with their own
ideas and opinions, have reduced a nation which is really
worthy of better things 2
;
.
is emblematical of the body, which really springs from and is one
with the Godhead. In the Bhagavat-gita it is said to typify the universe.
Ed.
It is said to be the male of the vata or banian (Ficus indica).
1
This is another sacred tree, which is dedicated to Siva, the Melia
Azadirachta.
Dubois.
2
See Racine's La Rtligion, cap. v. Dubois.
root
—
—