260 



Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [July, 1914. 



body of theni, viz., the guardian deities of a town. They 

 watch over the towns and look after the doings of the inhabi- 

 tants. TWy dwell in the city gates and offerings are made to 

 them. In the Takkariya Jataka l we find that a new gate of a 

 town was to be constructed, the former gate being abandoned 

 as inauspicious, and that the new one was to be consecrated 

 by offering a human sacrifice to the great deity presiding; over 

 that gate. In the Matanga Jataka' 2 we find the guardian 

 spirit of a town tormenting the inhabitants for insulting an 

 ascetic. In addition to these there was a belief that there were 



Guardian deities of 



kings. 



guardian deities of kings. When the 

 kings engaged themselves in fighting with 

 one another their guardian de.ties too 



used to fight. In the Cullakalinga Jataka 3 mention is made of 

 a battle between the Kings of 



Kalinga 



and Assaka 



The 



Assakas had a settlement on the Godavari and their capital 



was Potana. 



In this battle the guardian deities of the kings 



all 



appeared as two great bulls, one all white and the other 

 black. There was a fight between the two deities and the 

 victory fell to him whose guardian deity was victorious. 



We now come to the second class of spirits, the spirits 



in the trees. These spirits are more 



important than the others and their 



number is very large. Not merely the big 



trees are the abodes of spirits, but even the cas or tree has its 



In the Kundaka puva Jataka* and in the Anta Jataka 6 

 we come across spirits in the castor trees. In th^ former there 



The spirits in the 



trees. 



spirit. 



is a very interesting story of a tree-god. 



In one of his previous 



Dur- 



births the Bodisattva was born as spirit in a castor tree. 

 ing a festival men were making offerings of flowers and scents 

 and eatables to the tree gods. It must be noted here that every 

 individual had his own god to look after. A poor man wanted 

 to take charge of a tree-god and for that purpose he went with 

 cakes made of scum of rice and water to the castor tree in 

 which the Bodhisattva was born. But Hearing the tree he began 

 to think: " The gods live on celestial food; my god will not 

 accept this cake of scum. What is the use of wasting these? 

 Rather 1 would eat them myself." 



Thinking thus he was 

 turning his back, when the Bodhisattva seeing that his devotee 

 was going away, appeared in a visible form, and calling the 

 man said that as he was not rich there was no harm in his 

 offering the coarse cake. He too had no other alternative but 



to receive the offering. The details of a 

 worship ^^ tree- worship have been given in the Palasa 



Jataka. 6 The foot of the tree used to be 



l Jfttaka, Vol. IV, p. 246. 

 3 Jataka, Vol. Ill, p. 3. 

 * Jataka, Vol. II, p. 44* >. 



t Jataka, Vol. IV, p. 383 

 4 Jataka, Vol. I, p. 423. 

 6 Jataka, Vol. Ill, p. 23. 



