no TROnCAL PLANTS 



" The degree of sanctity with which this extraordinary tree has 

 been invested in the imagination of the Buddhists, may be 

 compared to the feeling of veneration with which Christians 

 would regard the attested wood of the cross. To it kings have 

 even dedicated their dominions, in testimony of their belief that 

 it is a branch of the identical fig-tree under which Gotama 

 Buddha reclined at Uruwelaya when he underwent his apo- 

 theosis. 



" When the king of Magadha, in compliance with the request 

 of the sovereign of Ceylon, was willing to send him a portion of I 

 that sanctified tree to be planted at Anarajapoora, he was de- 

 terred by the reflection that it * cannot be meet to lop it with 

 any weapon;' but under the instruction of the high priest, 

 using vermilion in a golden pencil he made a streak on the 

 branch, which, * severing itself, hovered over the mouth of a vase 

 filled with scented soil,' into which it struck its roots and 

 descended. Taking the legend as a sacred law, the Buddhist 

 priests to the present day object religiously to * lop it with any 

 weapon,' and are contented to collect any leaves, which, 'severing 

 themselves,' may chance to fall to the ground. These are re- 

 garded as treasures by the pilgrims, who carry them away toj 

 the remotest parts of the island 



" At the present day the aspect of the tree suggests the idea of 

 extreme antiquity : the branches which have rambled at theiri 

 will far beyond the outline of its inclosure, the rud^e pillars of 

 masonry that have been carried out to support them, the re- 

 taining walls which shore up the parent-stem, the time-worn 

 steps by which the place is approached, and the grotesque 

 carvings that decorate the stone-work and friezes, all impart th( 

 conviction that the tree which they encompass has been watched 

 over with abiding solicitude, and regarded with an excess of 

 veneration that could never attach to an object of dubiouia 

 authenticity." * 



Although far inferior to these wonders of the vegetable worh 

 in amplitude of growth, yet the Teak tree, or Indian oak (Tec- 

 tona granclis)^ far surpasses them in value, as the ship-worm ii 

 the water, and the termite on land, equally refrain from attack- 

 ing its close-grained strongly scented wood ; and no timbei 

 equals it for ship-building purposes. 



* Tonnont's "Ceylon," vol. ii. pp. 614, 618. 



