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 the sacred tree of the community. Her cultus is of primitive simplicity: she is chiefly worshipped by women, and if she has a priest he is usually not a Brāhman, but drawn from the menials or outcastes. In south India Brāhmans object to serve the Mothers because they cannot join in their animal sacrifices. In northern India her offerings consist usually of grain or fruit laid on her stones or of milk poured over them. The Orāon farmer, before transplanting his rice seedlings, makes a libation of rice-beer on the ground, and prays to Dhartī Māī: “O Mother Earth! May we have plenty of rain and a bumper crop! Here is a drink-offering for thee!” The forest-dwelling Kharwār in Mirzapur, who now lives chiefly by farming, prays: “O Mother Earth! Keep in prosperity and protect the ploughman and his oxen!” while in the Panjāb the prayer runs: “Keep our rulers and bankers contented! Grant us a plentiful yield! So shall we pay our revenue and satisfy our banker”—the sinister figure who haunts the dreams of the struggling peasant.

In the Vedas she is invoked to shelter the corpse as it is laid in the grave. “Go thou now to Mother Earth, who is wide-opened, favourable, a wool-soft maiden to the good man. May she guard thee from the lap of destruction! Be not oppressive to him, let him enter easily, may he fasten close to thee!”; or, as it runs in the Atharva-veda, “Be pleasant to him, O Earth, a thornless resting-place: furnish him with a broad refuge! I cover thee excellently with the garment of Mother Earth! Thou being earth, I make thee enter into earth!” The Rāūls of Poona at the present day, who bury their dead, say: “O Mother Earth! we make this body over to thee in the presence of the gods Brahmā and Vishnu, who are our witnesses.”