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[Display omitted] Soils at 57 ancient Hindu temples in India are documented from field profiles as a basis for understanding livelihoods of the five cults of Puranic (Smarta) Hinduism during the first millennium CE. Similar soils were found at different temples of the same deity, but different kinds of soils at temples of different deities. Temples of Ganesha and Hanuman, for example, are alluvial Entisols and Vertisols, the principal cultivable soils of India. Temples of Vishnu and Lakshmi are well drained Alfisols and Aridisols suitable for grazing, housing and markets. Different soils supported different livelihoods, social classes and cults, such as servant (shudra) class for farmers Ganesha and Hanuman, and herder-merchant (vaishya) class for Vishnu and Lakshmi. This result matches accounts in the Matsya Purana (250–500 CE) specifying dark organic soils for shudras and red soil for vaishyas. Puranic Smarta polytheism may reflect amalgamation of different tribal traditions during expansion of Gupta and other Hindu empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Soil properties and enzymatic activities varied across land use types and villages. • Agroforestry establishment accelerated soil enzymatic activities by 39.41–90.17%. • Cultivation caused massive decline in level and variability of enzymatic activities. • Climate, vegetation, and management practices determined the enzymatic activities. Soil microbial enzymatic activities, often used as indicators of soil health and fertility, are vulnerable to changes in climate and anthropogenic activities. This study analyses the responses of specific soil enzymatic activities– dehydrogenase (DHA), acid phosphatase (APH), β-glucosidase (BG) and urease (URE)– in Nitosols/Luvisols of the subtropical zone of the Central Himalaya, India. We investigated how these enzymatic activities vary with different land uses: arable land (AL), kitchen garden (KG) and peach orchard (PO), across four villages– Niglat, Kainchidham, Majhera and Syalikhet. Considering associated management practices, we quantified cumulative average soil enzymatic activities for the rabi season (2017–2018). In general, catalytic activity of the selected enzymes was highest in Syalikhet and lowest in Majhera. However, for land use types, enzymatic activities were lower in AL and KG (75.56–90.17% and 39.41–61.72%, respectively) compared to PO values. MANOVA analysis evaluated significant spatial differences (P < 0.001) in enzymatic activities. Soil enzymatic mean values were highest in the surface layer (0–10 cm) and decreased gradually with increasing depth. Parameters such as soil moisture content (SMC) and pH, along with vegetation, management practices, and nutrients such as SOC, TN, K, AP, and N forms (NH 4 +–N and NO 3 ––N) showed significant and strong correlations with all the soil enzyme activities (r = 0.40–0.97; P < 0.05). TN, SOC, K, SMC, pH, AP, NH 4 +- N, and clay content were key determining factors of soil enzymatic activities, explaining approximately 59% of the variation. These results suggest that using soil microbial enzymatic activities as soil quality indicators is a feasible approach to assess the impacts of vegetation, management practices, and soil profile depths in soils under different land use types/systems in selected impoverished villages of the fragile Central Himalaya, India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]