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A Miscellany of Trees

4. THE PEEPUL: Also called the Bo tree, the Arasa Maram, named Ficus religiosa botanically, this tree is celebrated as the most sacred. Not for nothing. Buddha received his enlightenment meditating under this tree. Even to this day, if not the original, a descendant of that original can be seen at Gaya. History tells us that a graft of the original Bo tree had been presented by Emperor Asoka in 288 B.C. to the king of Sri Lanka who obviously planted it at Kandy, where stands the famous Buddha Temple. In course of time, the original Bo at Gaya withered and a graft of the Bo at Kandy was brought to Gaya and the one that we see today at Gaya is the offshoot of 'Sri Lankan' graft.

A pilgrimage to Gaya is a much cherished dream of all Buddhists. It is so to many Hindus too. The Hindu who visits Gaya performs a rite at a spot, almost on the fingers of the tree's foliage canopy. Through the ritual he invokes peace to the souls of his ancestors and it is enjoined on him to give up consumption of two vegetables of which he is most fond, for the rest of his life. The underlying idea is inculcation of a spirit of surrendering one's lust for items that satisfy sensual pleasures. This warns the person against being an epicurean, for epicureanism is the source of all misery. And remember, Buddha walked out of his Royal home, to find out the cause of all misery. Naturally, the Hindu who assimilates every view point and makes it a part of his philosophy, struck upon this religious observance as part of his accomodating Buddha's teachings.

There is another Hindu practice worth mentioning in this connection. A childless woman, it is believed would be blessed with motherhood, if she does daily circumambulation to this Aswatha maram (Aswatha is another Sanskrit name for Bo tree), especially to one which grows entwined around a neem tree.

The peepul is a tall tree growing to a height of 50 to 60 feet. It doesn't have an overspreading canopy of foliage, unlike its cousin, the Banyan. Its leaves are strikingly beautiful, heart-shaped with a long drawn apical beak. Quite a few of them grow a little away from river banks and in such locations, as they flutter in the wind the leaves produce a melodious drum beat. Unfortunately, the peepul is a calciphile ( a plant that grows in lime-rich conditions) and is often seem growing on old walls, inviting punishment of being uprooted, for if left unpunished, it contributes to the dilapidation of the building. The senate House of Madras University has been a victim of the depradations of this tree and negligence on the part of University authorities is costing a tidy sum, restoring that beautiful heritage building.

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A research-oriented friend of mine once remarked that the invigoration of a passer-by who rested for a while in the shade of this tree is due to a heavy exhalation of oxygen from its leaves during its photosynthetic activity. A point worth investigating. Perhaps this could be a reason why villagers build a platform around a peepul tree and seated in its shade debate the problems of the village.

The leaves are thin with only a small amount of mesophyll, the chloroplast-studded tissue which serves as the seat of photosynthesis. It is this thinness of mesophyll, coupled with the absence of cuticle (a layer of a substance, called Cutin, meant to prevent excessive loss of water vapour from the leaf's surface) makes the leaf prone to cause an easy disintegration of its mesophyll. So, if you keep a peepul leaf in the pages of a thick tome, in time you come to see a leaf with all its veins (water - conducting channels) in tact, yet totally bereft of its mesophyll, forming a collector's item, a truly beautiful one at that.