Beautiful Yakshi from Besnagar, Madhya Pradesh, India (above) The ancient place-name refers to the Bais river in the Vidisha district.

The early stone sculpture of India is full of these forest goddesses, often shown draped around a sal tree, which remains a spiritual focus for many Adivasi / Indigenous people. The Sarna religion and Sarhul festival in Odisha centers on sal forest shrines (both names come from sal tree), and goddesses such as Chala Paccho (of the Kurukh / Oraon), Jahira Buru (of the Munda) or Jair Budho or Sarna Burhi. Chala Paccho and Jahira Buru are described as an old woman with white matted hair carrying a staff.

Or the forest goddess is called Ban Sapti Ma, Bansapatti, Ban Satti. More hinduized peoples call her Vana Durga, or she is revered as Dharti Mata, Mother Earth; among the Muslims of Sundarban, she is Vana Bibi ("lady of the forest"). Something of the deep meaning is remembered by the Dravidian Musahar of the eastern Vidhyas, who say that Bansuri (another variant on the names above, where Ban or Vana means "forest") makes everything grow, causes bees to make honey, animals to multiply and watches over births.

The goddess is revered at a stone under the most venerable tree in the sal grove. In Jharkand, celebration of the Sarhul festival marks the new year, with procession to the grove with offerings, drum dancing, rice beer drinking, and after all this sowing can begin. Similar customs were and are observing by Adivasi people in neighboring Odisha and Bengal.

Another view of the Besnagar goddess, now in Indian Museum of Kolkata.

In Poona district in Maharashtra, near Mangaon in the Western Ghat mountains, the sacred groves are named after the goddess Janni. This and other info from Sacred Groves of India: An Annotated Bibliography, by Kailash C. Malhotra, Yogesh Gokhale, Ketaki Das. Google this for a pdf download, i'm having trouble copying the link. 

"In a few Muria villages there are no temples. In Almer there is nothing but a few stone seats under saja trees, where the village Mother is worshipped and the New Eating ceremonies performed. In Kajen the village Mother forbade the erection of any shrine.

"But in most villages there are several buildings that fulfil the above definition of a temple. Sometimes these are scattered about the village, one put in the jungle, another in someone's field, a third actually in the compound of a house. In Markabera there was only one temple.

"In Bayanar there are eight grouped together round a wooded hill covered with fantastic rocks amid which the little shrines are built. These temples on the hillside were curiously impressive, old gods of hill and forest seemed very present there."

Elwin, V. 1947 The Muria and Their Ghotul. Oxford University Press, London.

Munda and Ho people dancing at Sarhul festival, northeastern India, painted by Indigenous artist.

"In the Sundarban area [of coastal Bengal], the Oraon tribals have no temple as that of the Hindus, but have village Than i.e., sacred spot marked for the village deities. In the villages, sheds are erected for Devi Mai or Mother -Goddess, who is apparently a deity borrowed from the Hindus. Besides sheds of Devi Mai, they also have one or more sal (Shorea robusta) groves or one or more solitary trees, constituting the shrine of the village deities.

"The place of worship is generally situated in the centre of the village, is regularly cleaned and plastered with cow dung paste by the assistant of the Pahan [priest]. There is an earthen platform in the middle of the Than on which there are a number of earthen balls, each of which represents a particular deity of the village. The number of earthen balls vary from five to nine. The babla tree represents the tree for Jhakarburia and also for Bon bibi. [mentioned above in Hindi form as Vana Bibi, "lady of the forest."] Sometimes, a few Tulsi plant can also be seen near the Than."

Das, A. K. and Raha, M. K. 1963 The Oraons of Sunderban. Bulletin of Cultural Research Institute, pp. 240-343.

"Authors illustrate the phenomenon of these sacred groves with the help of two examples from Maharashtra; one, a grove of the goddess Janni at Mangaon in Velhe taluka of Poona district and the second, a grove of the goddess Kalkai at Gani in Shrivardhan taluka of Kolaba district.

"Scattered, apparently throughout India, are a large number of forest tracts, which have remained immune from human interference because of religious beliefs. As deforestation has been taking place at a rapid rate in many areas, such forests have come to be the only remnants of the original forest in a number of cases."

Gadgil, M. and Vartak, V. D. 1975 Sacred groves of India: A plea for continued conservation. Journal of Bombay Natural History Society,72: 314 - 320.

Eastern India: "Another village deity is `Monrenko Turuiko'. The Santals believe that they were five brothers [compare this theme with the Pandyas in Mahabharata.) They are supposed to preside over the welfare of the village.

"His younger sister `Gosane era' constitutes a separate deity of Jaherthan (Holy grove) and is offered worship in a different hut, 'Jaher era', another sister of Morenko is the goddess of Jaherthan named after her. She has a stone assigned as her symbol. The Santals worship her for the general welfare of the village, so that their children may have good health, crops may grow in plenty and youths and maids of the tribe may be married quickly. Manjhi has his place no doubt, but he is worshipped at the Manjhithan, a separate shrine in the village."

Mukherjee, C. 1962 The Santals. A Mukherjee & Co. Pvt. Ltd., Calcutta.

Drum dance of the Sarna festival, celebrated in the sal grove, in Odisha, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.

"Sarna Burhi ("Woman of the Grove") is a deity worshiped by various animist peoples living in the Bengal region of India and Bangladesh. Sarna Burhi is depicted as the goddess of Sal tree groves and she is strongly associated with water and plant life. The deity is traditionally worshiped by the Munda, Kurukh, and Oraon peoples of Bengal.

"Sarna Burhi is described as being a goddess associated with spirits, rain, and plants. In the culture of the Munda and Kurukh peoples (both of which constitute part of the Adivasi peoples). Sarna Burhi is depicted as the guardian of Sarna, sacred groves of trees that serve as refuges for spirits displaced by human activity. These sites are described by some sources as remnant of old Sal forests which used to cover parts of Bengal's landscape. In the tradition of the peoples who worship at the groves, the Sal trees cause misfortune to fall on any who harm or cut down the trees that make up a Sarna. Rather, the groves are treated as sacred places.

"Sarna play a significant role in the religious activities of several cultures originating in Bengal, where individual villages often worship their own pantheon of deities. The goddess Sarna Burhi resides in and protects these sacred spaces and as such worshipers of the faith pay homage to her during religious festivals that involve the Sarna.

"In the culture of the Munda peoples, some villages participate in a religious ceremony held in honor of Sarna Burhi. During the ceremony, several fowl are ritually slaughtered in front of an idol or symbol of the goddess near the Sarna.[5] The worshipers then hold a feast during which the fowl are consumed. A procession, accompanied by music (produced by drums and horns), is then started leading back to the village;[ the worshipers also spread sal blossoms in their wake, which are later used to decorate the doors of the village's houses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarna_Burhi

Salabhaniyika from Hoysala temple, Karnataka, circa 1100-1200. Sal or shal tree was sacred all over India.

Buddhists assimilated the sal tree, and its association with birth and life-giving power, into its story of the birth of Gautama Siddhartha. His mother Maya gives birth to him, in what was patriarchally imagined as a more "pure" way, from her side. (A parallel to the "virgin birth" of Christianity: Nature's way not good enough for the special man.) She does so while leaning on a sal tree. This is yet another indicator of the depth of the Adivasi sal goddess.

Sarna religion

"Sarna means "grove" and is etymologically related to the name of the sal tree. For Santali mythological belief 'Sarna' means 'it is arrow' [Sar- arrow, Na- it is (in feminine gender of Santali grammar).

"Adherents of Sarnaism believe in, worship, and revere a village deity as protector of village, who is called as Gaon khunt, Gram deoti ["village goddess"], Dharmes, Marang Buru, Singbonga, or by other names by different tribes. Adherents also believe in, worship, and revere Dharti ayo or Chalapachho Devi, the mother goddess identified as the earth or nature.

"Sarna is place of worship which is sacred grove. It is also called gram than, Jaher than or Jaher gar, and can be found in villages. Sal trees are in the sacred grove. The ceremonies are performed by the whole village community at a public gathering with the active participation of village priests, pahan."

Kurukth (Oraon) women celebrating Sarna on Nov 13.