Tree Ghosts.
Hence in regard to trees great caution is required. A Hindu will never climb one of the varieties of fig, the Ficus Cordifolia, except through dire necessity, and if a Brâhman is forced to ascend the Bel tree or Aegle Marmelos for the purpose of obtaining the sacred trefoil so largely used in Saiva worship, he only does so after offering prayers to the gods in general, and to the Brahmadaitya in particular who may have taken up his abode in this special tree.
These tree ghosts are, it is needless to say, very numerous. Hence most local shrines are constructed under trees, and in one particular tree, the Bîra, the jungle tribes of Mirzapur locate Bâgheswar, the tiger godling, one of their most dreaded deities. In the Konkan, according to Mr. Campbell,217 the medium or Bhagat who becomes possessed is called Jhâd, or “tree,” apparently because he is a favourite dwelling-place for spirits. In the Dakkhin it is believed that the spirit of the pregnant woman or Churel lives in a tree, and the Abors and Padams of East Bengal believe that spirits in trees kidnap children.218 Many of these tree spirits appear in the folk-tales. Thus, Devadatta worships a tree which one day suddenly clave in two and a nymph appeared who introduced him inside the tree, where was a heavenly palace of jewels, in which, reclining on a couch, appeared Vidyatprabhâ, the maiden daughter of the king of the Yakshas; in another story the mendicant hears inside a tree the Yaksha joking with his wife.219 So Daphne is turned into a tree to avoid the pursuit of her lover.