204 THE PIPaL TREE OVERTURNING BUILDINGS. 



viate the veteran physician's interesting and instructive 

 account of these phenomena. 



" A deserted village " (he goes on to say) " is overflowed 

 by the forest, like the waves of the sea: in the course of 

 two wet seasons the traces of man are buried by the exuberant 

 productions of Nature; all marks of human labour, industry, 

 and art being obliterated in an incredibly short time. The 

 Peepul tree (or Bo-tree) is the great enemy of buildings. 

 'No wonder,' says Colonel Sleeman, ' that superstition should 

 have consecrated this tree, delicate and beautiful as it is, to 

 the gods. The palace, the castle, the temple, and the tomb 

 all those works which man is most proud to raise, to spread 

 and perpetuate his name; crumble to dust beneath her with- 

 ering grasp. She rises triumphant over them all, in her lofty 

 beauty, bearing high in the air, amidst her light green foliage, 

 fragments of the wreck she has v made, to show the nothing- 

 ness of man's efforts.' " * 



The Buddhists have therefore, as we believe, adopted 

 the Bo-tree as a type of the vanity and instability of 

 earthly greatness, which has always been made a pro- 

 minent doctrine by the teachers of that faith. Thus, 

 Sir Richard Temple, in alluding to this matter, has 

 pointed out that 



<: In the more modern of the Buddhist temples, there is a stone 

 figure, seated, or standing, and sometimes colossal, of Buddha. 

 The forefinger solemnly points to warn men to look from 

 mortality to immortality from the seen things of time, to 

 the unseen things of Eternity. The hand, holding a pinch 

 of dust, indicates the insignificance of all human greatness." f 



Nowhere, therefore, could the fable of Gotama 

 Buddha receiving his Buddhahood, have its scene 



* The Influence of Tropical Climates in the Production of Disease, 

 by Sir J. R. Martin, 1861 p. 57. 



']' India in 1880, by Sir Richard Temple, late Governor of Bombay, 

 and Lieut.-Governor of Bengal, 1881, p. 28. 



