Hindu Medicine c7.309

c7.309

A Hindu carpenter or householder, when he fells a tree for building a house, according to Brahmin ritual lore, acts just contrariwise. Before felling the tree, he prays to its life-spirit not to “remain on the spot,” but gently to abandon his abode, so as not to get hurt by the axe, and to cause subsequent mischief to the house by haunting its timber. But having an opposite aim, the physician is eager to preserve the fiery life-force dwelling in the substance of the tree, lest it should vanish from its demolished home and, in doing so, render ineffective the caustic prepared from the tree.