380 The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. [May, 



Ficus religiosa : " Peepul," from pa, to preserve ; the practice of all 

 India bears out the etymology; not even a sacrifice atones for the 

 crime of wounding and maiming it, and fortunately the wood is useless. 

 This noble tree, abundant in the forests of the Bhabur, is planted as 

 an exotic by the temples at Almorah, where it is sorely nipped in severe 

 winters. It is worshipped on Saturday with " geetgan" (hymns) and 

 the "purkuma" (prukruma) or great circuit, performed by parties of 

 women. It is " the Tree of Knowledge," Bodhidrooma of the Hindoo 

 mythology ; or simply " Bodhi," intellect, knowledge. Hence the 

 famous Bo-tree of the Buddhists. It is perhaps fanciful to connect 

 "Bo" and "Bur" with the Bo-tree or Bourtree (elder) of western 

 Scotland, with which many superstitious notions are associated : and 

 still more so to conjecture that the islands Arran, Bute, &c. derived 

 their names from the worship of Buddh, established in that far-west 

 by the messengers of king Piyadasa, the spiritual father of all mission- 

 aries. 



Sanscrit synonymes for the Peepul are " Nagbundhoo," "liked by 

 elephants ;" " Koonjurashun," " food of elephants ;" also " Gujashun," 

 and " Gujbhukshuk," to the same effect : which is so true that the 

 spots selected for pitfalls are, if possible, near this or the Bur. Munaka, 

 S., for an elephant, is from mun, to think, to understand ; and Locke 

 avows his opinion that " dogs and elephants give all the demonstrative 

 of thinking imaginable, except only telling us that they do so." (Es- 

 say, B. II.) The Hindoos have deified the sagacity of the elephant in 

 Gunes, and perhaps supposed that it was attained by feeding on these 

 trees. Here is a rational origin of the Tree of Knowledge — only per- 

 mitted, however, to a German Professor ! Milton ventures to affirm 

 that the paradisaical Fig was no other than Ficus indica, and that its 

 leaves formed the first clothing of our first parents ; a moral and poeti- 

 cal retribution if the Banian tree may also be considered a tree of 

 knowledge: "the Brahmans," says Roxburgh, "are partial to the 

 leaves of this tree to make their plates to eat off ; they are jointed 

 together by inkles." Hence if existing eastern names and notions 

 are to be our guides in interpreting the records of oriental antiquity, 

 after the method of Burder and many others, we must realize the Tree 

 of Life — the Shujrut-ul-hyat — in Cupressus sempervirens ; and the 

 Tree of Knowledge — Bodhidrooma, in Ficus religiosa or F. indica, while 



