The observations in the text apply largely to the settled Hindoo villages, as well as to the forest tribes.

2. Ficus religiosa is the Linnaean name for the ‘pipal’.  Other botanists call it Urostigma religiosum.  In the original edition the botanical name is erroneously given as Ficus indicus.  The Ficus indica (F.  Bengalensis, or Urostigma B.) is the banyan.  A story is current that the traders of a certain town begged the magistrate to remove a pipal-tree which he had planted in the market-place, because, so long as it remained, business could not be conducted.  They knew ‘the value of a lie’.

3.  The red cotton, or silk-cotton, tree, when in spring covered with its huge magnolia-shaped scarlet blossoms, is one of the most magnificent objects in nature.  Its botanical name is Salmalia malabarica (Bombax malabaricum; B. heptaphyllum).  This is the tree referred to in the text.  The white silk-cotton tree (Eriodendron anfractuosum; Bombax ’pentandrum; Ceiba pentandra; Gossampinus Rumphii) has a more southern habitat. (Balfour, Cyclopaedia, 3rd ed., s.v.  ‘Salmalia’ and ’Eriodendron’.)

4.  The pipal is usually regarded as sacred only to Vishnu, the Preserver.  The Ficus indica, or banyan, is sacred to Siva, the Destroyer, and the Butea frondosa (Hind. ‘dhak’, ‘palas’, or ’chhyul ’) to Brahma, the Creator, or [Greek text].

5.  The sacred trees and plants of India are numerous.  ’Balfour (Cyclop., 3rd ed., s.v.  ‘Sacred’) enumerates eighty, and the list is by no mean complete.  The same author’s article, ‘Tree’, may also be consulted.  The minor ‘deities’ alluded to by the author are the real gods of popular rural Hinduism.  The observations of Mr. William Crooke, probably the best authority on the subject of Indian popular religion, though made with reference to a particular locality, are generally applicable.  ’Hinduism certainly shows no signs of weakness, and is practically untouched by Christian and Muhammadan proselytism.  The gods of the Vedas are as dead as Jupiter, and the Krishna worship only succeeds from its marvellous adaptability to the sensuous and romantic side of the native mind.  But it would be too much to say that the creed exercises any real effect on life or morals.  With the majority of its devotees it is probably more sympathetic than practical, and ranks with the periodical ablutions in the Ganges and Jumna, and the traditional worship of the local gods and ghosts, which really impress the rustic.  He is enclosed on all sides by a ring of precepts, which attribute luck or ill-luck to certain things or actions.  These and the bonds of caste, with its obligations for the performance of marriage, death, and other ceremonies, make up the religions life of the peasant.  Nearly every village and hamlet has its local ghost, usually the shrine of a childless man, or one whose funeral rites remained