Note 50 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.

The leaves are also used throughout Northern India as a means of avoiding the death pollution, or rather as a mode of driving off the spirit which accompanies the mourners from the cremation ground. Hence after the funeral they chew the leaves and some water is sprinkled over them with a branch of the tree. “So great is the power of the Nîm over spirits and spirit disease, that in Bombay, when a woman is delivered of a child, Nîm leaves and cow’s urine are, as a rule, kept at the entrance of the lying-in room, in order that the child and its mother may not be affected by an evil spirit, and on their New Year’s Day it is considered essential for every Hindu to worship the Nîm tree and to eat its leaves mixed with pepper and sugar, that he may not suffer from any sickness or disease during the year. In practice very few worship the tree, but its leaves are generally eaten by most of them. Among the Chitpâwan Brâhmans, a pot filled with cow’s urine is set at the door of the lying-in room with a Nîm branch in it, and anyone coming in must dip the branch in the urine and with it sprinkle his feet. Among Govardhan Brâhmans of Pûna, when a child is born, Nîm leaves are hung at the front and back doors of the house. In Ahmadnagar, when a person is bitten by a snake, he is taken to Bhairoba’s temple, crushed Nîm leaves mixed with chillies are given him to eat, and Nîm leaves waved round his head. Among the Nâmdeo Shimpis of Ahmadnagar each of the mourners carries from the pyre a twig of the Nîm tree, and the Kanphatas of Cutch get the cartilage of their ears slit, and in the slit a Nîm stick is stuck, the wound being cured by a dressing of Nîm oil.”50