56 BOMBAY, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
dressed in a yellow sért. Her hair is dishevelled, her forehead 
besmeared with red powder, and her eyelashes darkened with lamp- 
black. She has the appearance of wildness, and her general demea- 
nour betokens mischief, for death has been early, and the woman 
has died before properly enjoying the world. The youthful Munja is 
not so wild, havine died before he was old enough to appreciate a 
worldly life. The spirit Munjé is at the best an indifferent spirit. 
He is dressed in the fashion suited to his age and calling. Hisage is 
boyish. He has just passed through the ceremony of the investiture 
of the holy thread, but has died before the sacred girdle is off his 
waist. He is nude, he carries with him a staff obtained from the 
palas tree (Butea frondosa). He has the recently assumed sacred 
thread across his left shoulder, He has his water bowl and his jholi, 
or bag, to receive the alms he asks to sustain his body during the 
period of his pupilage. Why such a tender and harmless spirit 
should ever have been created by the story-teller beats my imagin- 
ation. I can understand an angry, unsatisfied grown-up person, 
male or female, being anxious to linger around the place dear to 
him or her during life, and being angry and dissatisfied, they might 
wear countenances horrid enough to terrify those whom they haunt; 
but I cannot understand this of a boy, whose spirit, after his boyish 
frolics, requires rest and peace, or whose lissome countenance 
wants a more congenial home than the constantly rustling branches 
of a shady peepul. There is no botanical reason why the peepul 
should be haunted by evil spirits. In Bombay it grows. rather - 
irregularly, but up-country I have seen its stem as perfect and ercct, 
beautifully shining as it could be. The leaves lovely, delicately 
tinted, perfect in their frame work, and altogether when the stem is 
not irregular it is a lovely tree, though not productive of any edible 
fruit. The presence of the Hindoo trinity gods, therefore, is more 
suited to the general appearance of the peepul. 
Far different in appearance is the Umbar tree, botanically called 
the Hicus glomerata, at the foot of .which the guardian’ deity is 
Datidtraya. The legend of the birth of this peaceful, all-powerful, 
and all-protecting deity is highly amusing. You already know the 
gods of the Hindoo trinity. Let me introduce to you their wives: 
Savitri, wife of Bramha ; Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu ;and Parvati, wife 
of Shiva. These three dutiful wives are extremely devoted to their 
respective lords. The story is that there was a certain saint called 
Atri, living happily with his devoted wife Anusay’. Though the 
