Winter India/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE SACRED BO-TREE
HE broad stone staircase which leads down to the court from the north commands the view of the temple and tree which uncounted thousands have drunk in with ecstasy, a place which has resounded for centuries with prayers and chants; for Gautama Buddha said in his lifetime: "If any one look with a pleasant mind at a dagoba, or at the Court of the Bo-tree, he will undoubtedly be born in a dewa loka,"[1] a pilgrimage to Buddha-Gaya being therefore a certain advance toward Nirvana. Aside from the historic and religious associations of this particular bo- or pipul-tree, the Ficus religiosa has a character and interest quite its own, the effect of its symmetrical growth and well-balanced foliage masses, heightened by the continual agitation of its brilliant, dark-green leaves. Even on that still afternoon each individual, heart-shaped leaf, with its long-drawn, tapering tendril tip, was trembling and spinning on its slender foot-stalk, until the whole tree mass was in agitation—every one of the myriad glossy, green leaves flashing with a separate light as these thousands of perpetually moving mirrors caught the sun. The restlessness and activity of these bo-leaves, vibrating and striking together with a tinkling noise like the patter of soft raindrops on still nights, make the pipul the most grateful shade-tree, and the reflections of its glossy leaves suggest always the first stir of a rising breeze. This flashing, sparkling, flickering play of light all over the tree gives the pipul its unique and individual character—something like the dazzling, glittering trees that one sees in pictures by imperfect vitascope. The pipul trembles to this day in reverence for the one who became Buddha beneath its branches, and as symbol of the continual change and motion, the impermanency of the world. The pipul whispers to Rishaba,the Hindus say, every word it hears, for which reason it is never planted in the bazaar where trade must employ the lie. Brahmans claim that Brahma planted the pipul-tree, and that Vishnu, who in his ninth avatar became Buddha, was born beneath a pipul-tree. The Hindu pilgrims, who come in such thousands every year to offer unleavened cakes and repeat mantras to this tree at Buddha-Gaya, before worshiping the print of Vishnu's footsteps at Brahm-Gaya, believe that a service beneath its branches will relieve their ancestors for one hundred generations back.
The Bo-tree was always worshiped, swept around, sprinkled with milk and perfumes, and hung with offerings in the Buddha's lifetime, and he taught, from his seat beneath it, that he was but one of a series of Buddhas who appear on earth as faith wanes and the world needs purification; that his religious system would continue for five thousand years and then suffer extinction, when all relics, having lost honor and worshipers, would return to the foot of this same Bo-tree, and there, assuming the form of the Buddha's body, be consumed in their own refulgence, as in a flame. Then a new Buddha shall come, Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of Kindness, who shall redeem the world by love and again show the way to Nirvana.
To devout Buddhists the Sacred Bo-tree is the most sacred symbol and object in all the world, the living representative of Buddha himself, who distinctly enjoined its worship. When the pilgrims, bringing flowers and perfumes and offerings to Sewet, failed to find him, Ananda suggested that some object be designated for them to worship in his absence, and Buddha said: "The objects that are proper to receive worship are of three kinds. … In the last division is the tree at the foot of which I became Buddha. Therefore send to obtain a branch of that tree and set it in the court of this vihara. He who worships it will receive the same reward as if he worshiped me in person." When requested to honor this tree by sitting at the foot of it, Buddha said that when he sat under the tree at Gaya he became Buddha, and that "it was not meet he should sit in the same manner near any other tree."
Buddhists regard the Bo-tree as too sacred to be touched or robbed of a leaf, and devout Burmese pilgrims kneel, fix their eyes upon it, and in a trance of prayer wait until a miraculous leaf detaches itself and flutters down. It seemed sacrilege when the Brahman snapped off a leaf and offered it to me with the universal Indian gesture of the begging palm, and, at a request for more, snatched off a whole handful of trembling green hearts, as ruthlessly and brainlessly as the troop of monkeys in the bo-tree at Anuradhpura had done a few weeks before.
Despite the reverently worded mantra with which his own people address the tree, this Brahman butcher, responsive to a single rupee, continued to snatch off and break away twig after twig until I had a great green bouquet of nearly one hundred living, quivering leaves of Buddhist prayer. With no seeming appreciation of the sacrilege, he said: "Some people are satisfied with just one leaf. They bow to it, pray to it, and carry it away in a gold box." Then he set himself down on the Vajrasana, the Diamond Throne, the Bodhi Manda, or Veranda of Knowledge, to yawn and scratch his lean arms as he adjusted his drapery.
Three centuries after the death of the Buddha the emperor Asoka, grandson of that Asoka who drove the Greeks from India and who ruled from Kabul to the sea, began a relentless persecution of Buddhists. He ordered the Sacred Bo-tree cut down and burned; but when two trees sprang uninjured from the flames and a priest emerged unharmed, the "raging Asoka" was humbled, converted. He built a wall around the tree, and marked the Great Teacher's seat by a carved stone altar or table—the Vajrasana, or Diamond Throne, the reputed center of the universe, the jewel that came up from the center of the earth to mark where Buddha sat when he attained perfect wisdom—Bodhi Manda, the Veranda of Knowledge. Asoka erected a small brick temple, made pilgrimages to every spot connected with the life of Buddha, and marked them by stupas, or inscribed columns. He summoned the Great Council, when the doctrines were first put in writing in the square Pali characters of his day; he sent missionaries to all parts of the world, even despatching his own son as evangelist to Ceylon, and making his daughter bearer of the cutting of the Sacred Bo-tree sent to Anuradhpura,
Asoka's wife became jealous of the sacred tree, and tried vainly to destroy it; persecuting rajas cut it down and filled the roots with fire; but it sprang always to the same stature again. The Chinese pilgrims saw and described it; the first English travelers found it green and vigorous, and it was perpetuated, of course, like its congener at Anuradhpura, by the dropping of a seed in the fork or hollow of the dying trunk. The archæologists found in 1861 that the tree was growing forty-five feet above the original level of the court, traces of sixteen successive cement platforms showing where that many trees had mounted upon the roots of preceding trees. That venerable pipul, with many dead branches and stumps, was blown over in 1876, and the stripling Bo-tree flourishing in its mold was carefully replanted at the level of the earliest tree, and the Diamond Throne, a slab of polished sandstone, replaced in its afternoon shade. There were unusual numbers of pilgrims for a few years, and the pious Burmese covered the stem and branches with so much gold leaf, poured so much milk, perfumery, cologne, oil, incense, tins of sardines, European food and confections around its roots, that it began to droop and die. General Cunningham put in a new tree in 1885, and surrounded it by a brick wall inlaid with old carved stones around the window openings on each side. A marble table or altar was erected by a pious Cingalese to receive the Burmese and Hindu offerings, and that sturdy tree glitters and grows magnificently.
There was no building of any kind at Mahabodhi in the Buddha's lifetime, nor can any stone or inscription be traced to his day. The First Council met in the great sculptured cave on the hillside, and it was not until the Third Council, 244 b.c., that Asoka erected a temple. Buddhism, having found its Constantine in the "sorrowless Asoka," remained the state religion throughout the great empire.
The temple became a treasury of relics and riches. The window-frames and door-frames of gold and silver were set with gems, the Diamond Throne was heaped with all the jewels of the East, and, like the Jeweled Cloister, was literally what its name indicates. Archæologists are not all agreed whether the present temple was built by the Scythian conquerors in the second century, or by a Brahman in the sixth century. Between the second and fourth centuries the priests had left Mahabodhi, and Buddhism was at such an ebb that Brahmans seized the temple, cast out the golden image, and installed their emblems in its place. "All was desolate and abandoned" when Fahien arrived from China, 400 a.d.; but, later, Hiouen Thsang saw and minutely described the great temple which stands to-day where stood "the chief of the eighty-four thousand shrines erected by Dharma Asoka, ruler of the earth at the close of the two hundred and eighteenth year of Buddha's Nirvana, upon the holy spot where our Lord tasted the milk and honey," as the inscribed stone declares.
In all the romance of religion, nothing equals the vicissitudes and alternating fortunes of this sacred place; for, soon after Hiouen Thsang's visit, Buddhism degenerated, the Brahmans again took over the sanctuary, and the monastery became a fort. In the sixteenth century of Buddhism, about 1000 a.d., there was a revival and a reformation of the faith; the temple was restored, and priests gathered in numbers. Again it fell away, and at the time of the Mohammedan conquest the Buddhists were persecuted like other infidels, and the ruins of their temples and monasteries tell how hundreds of priests met death by fire and sword in such asylums. In the fourteenth century the King of Burma sent an embassy to restore the temple, when a few Buddhist priests were found in the lonely place.
Floods came and left their sand deposits in the court, brick and plaster crumbled, the jungle crept upon the open space, trees flourished in every piece of masonry, and Mahabodhi was without a history until a Shivaite mendicant wandered there in the first years of the eighteenth century, as the mendicant Gautama had come in his yellow robe so long before. He lived a hermit among the ruins, attracting other wanderers until he had a sufficient following to build a monastery by the river bank. Little heed was paid these pious squatters, but as their numbers increased the chief mahant obtained a firman from the emperor Shah Alum, confirming them in their ownership of the ground they had built upon. The sacred courtyard was the quarry for these builders, and they chose the most accessible stones—frequently those that were carved and inscribed.
The King of Burma sent missions to rebuild and restore the temple in 1805 and in 1831, and one of the Shivaite priests, who later guided Buchanan Hamilton around the ruins, claimed to have been converted by the Burmese visitors, and from their books to have been taught the history of each monument within the sacred court. The Archæological Survey made examinations and excavations at Buddha-Gaya in 1861 and 1863, found the true level of the old court, and brought to light the Diamond Throne and the greater part of Asoka's rail.
In 1877 another mission from the King of Burma obtained the consent of the Bengal government and of the mahant at Buddha-Gaya to restore the temple. Word reached Calcutta of the zeal with which these Burmese were razing and obliterating old structures and monuments, and Dr. Mitra was sent to investigate; but the wreck and transformation of the temple court had gone too far for any interference to avail. The Burmese had demolished gateways, pavilions, and monuments, leveled ruin-heaps, swept away terraces and votive stupas, used carved stones for foundations or minor constructions; or, casting them recklessly on different rubbish-heaps, made it impossible to identify what Hiouen Thsang had so carefully described.
In 1879 General Cunningham, chief of the Archæological Survey, cleared out the entire temple court of the sand and rubbish of ages, completely restored the temple within and without, and rebuilt the portico over the east entrance door and the four corner pavilions. A miniature stone temple found in excavating, and repeated in bas-reliefs and Buddhist sculptures everywhere from Amraoti to Gandhara, and at many places in Burma, gave the model for the restorations. Every measurement now corresponds precisely to the Chinese priest's account, and the temple lacks only the hundreds of gilded images in the tiers of niches that mount to the gilded amalika at the summit. The temple stands exactly over the site of Asoka's temple, and the original floor and altar are uncovered. A ball of clay in an altar niche contained a rich treasure—bits of gold leaf and beaten gold in the form of flowers and stars, pearls, rough sapphires and rubies, bits of beryl, jade, agate, and crystal. Even the plaster of this altar was composed of pounded coral, pearl, ivory, and precious stones mixed with lime. A similar treasure was found in a vase beneath the image niched in the outer temple wall; and all these relics are now to be seen in the India Museum at Calcutta, together with tablets bearing Chinese inscriptions and scores of terra-cotta lamps, seals, and votive tablets molded within the outlines of a bo-leaf.
Of the Jeweled Cloister—that long pavilion covering the path where Buddha paced to and fro and flowers sprang up as he trod, whose carved columns were hung with garlands of flowers and strings of jewels and half incased in silver and gold—only fragments remain to mark the position and extent. Asoka's carved sandstone rail, "the oldest sculptured monument in India," has been carefully replaced, as far as possible, and in long stretches shows us that curious carpenter's arrangement of mortised posts and rails and carved rosette ornaments over each joint and cross-piece. The great pillars and cross-beams of the toran gateway, precursor of the Chinese pailow and the Japanese torii, have been raised before the entrance, but too much of it is missing to tell whether it was as splendid and monumental as the toran of Sanchi which Asoka later began erecting. Twenty posts and many rosettes of the carved rail had been built into the walls and courts of the mahants' college, and no amount of persuasion could induce the heathens to restore them to the temple court.
All about the Bo-tree, the Diamond Throne, the Cloister, and the temple doorway, the stones were daubed with gold-leaf and ocher. The Brahman guide was just able to tell that these yellow smears were the offerings of pious Burmese, but to any 
ASOKA'S RAIL, BUDDHA-GAYA
The Brahman had little interest in the big Burmese bells by the temple door, in the venerable statues, or in the sacred sites. Whether this place was the cloistered flower-tank or the lotus-pond, or only where Buddha washed his robe or his bowl, he cared not; but he showed us insistently the cylindrical monument to the first mahant of the Shivaite monastery, who there performed the great penance, or rather feat, of "the five fires." To attain great spiritual reward, this sacred salamander sat between four fires, with the midsummer sun overhead, and survived to enjoy the expected sanctity. Another monument marked where one of the fraternity had been devoured by a tiger while at prayer, and the Brahman could not understand our affected depression when he had assured us and reassured us that the tigers did not come to the courtyard now—"not eat the priests any more, surely, truly, memsahib. Be not uneasy."
The Brahman boasted of the number of pilgrims who came to Buddha-Gaya—"from everywhere!—from Colombo, Rangoon, Tibet-ty, China, Japan!—oh, from everywhere! Now is there a Japanese over there at the palace," pointing toward the monastery by the river bank. He led us to the mahants' college, and through a labyrinth of stone courts, where scores of Shivaite priests lounged and loafed over their bowls and messes of food, and across a garden full of little Burmese pagodas, to the rest-house built for resting Burmese by King Mindon Min. The Brahman routed out a languid creature in loose garments with yards of a pale pink sarong wobbling between his knees, a short white jacket fastened closely at the neck, and a topknot of hair under a cap. A queer-looking Japanese, surely.
"Where are you from?" we asked.
"Rangoon!" drawled the ghostly Maung Somebody, and when we protested to the Brahman that he had deceived us with a mere every-day, near-by Burmese, he said: "Oh! Burmese, Japanese, just the same. Their country is a long way off, but they all come to Buddha-Gaya."
The shadows were lengthening and palms and pipuls were rustling in the afternoon wind, but even after hours spent in Mahabodhi there was something wanting, something inharmonious in one's general impression. The temple was too well preserved, and proclaimed too loudly the plumb-line and the trowel's work. Sentiment and day-dreams could not play upon those precise angles and sharp edges. And the Tree of Knowledge! as trim, compact and shapely as a California orange-tree, with squawking parrots flashing in and out of its flickering foliage, as if it were but a common tree for birds to perch upon! There was too much of shock and disillusionment at Mahabodhi; too much of the garish every day; a lack of romance and mystery, and of any real sense of antiquity and of chance for imagination.
We drove back with our treasure of sacred leaves, and saw the busy bazaars of Gaya before a salmon and saffron sunset of blinding glory held us at the dak bangla's gate, while the blind beggar wailed by the roadside, the women went to and fro with their water-jars, the parrakeets flew shrieking among the tamarind-trees before they settled for the night, and our lank Moslem knelt and bent to the ground in repeated prayers to the Mecca beyond the sunset.
When we went to the midnight train that was to take us away, a raja and his suite were just arriving from Bankipur. There was hurry and excitement, a rushing to and fro of richly dressed attendants, and much glitter and splendor and flash of color, as the torch-bearers led the raja in his jeweled turban to the low dhoolie suspended from a curved silver yoke, and, lifting it, bore him out into the night. The voices of his followers died away as the flicker of the torches was finally lost down the road, but the last impression of Gaya was of that raja sitting cross-legged, like a god, in his silver and velvet car, departing by torch-light to some palace, whence he would issue before sunrise to bathe in the Phalgu, to worship the Bo-tree and the Vishnupad—all living traces of the great religion obliterated, like Gautama's own footprints in that dusty road; the Light of Asia forever extinguished on the spot where it first rose upon the world; the great temple and the Sacred Bo-tree drowsing, neglected, in the sunshine of an empty, lifeless court; the temple of a sleeping Buddha, of a dead religion, everything turned to stone, when there have passed but half of those five thousand years that the Master declared his religion would endure, an annihilation greater and more complete than Nirvana already come to the faith in its birthplace.
- ↑ Dewa loka is one of the six celestial worlds between earth and heaven.