Note 80 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.
Reading edition
Before considering a possible explanation of this group of customs, we may note other instances of pseudo-marriages. We have, in the first place, instances of the marriage of girls to a god. “In the Gurgâon District, in the Rewâri Tahsîl, at the village of Bâs Doda, a fair is held on the 26th of Chait and the two following days. I was told that formerly girls of the Dhînwar class used to be married to the god at these festivals, and that they always died soon afterwards, but that of late years the practice has been discontinued.”80