Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/353

Rh also in Java. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 257; also p. 260, note 1, where he gives the following comparative descriptions of the two species, though he also points out that in ancient descriptions the characteristics of the two trees are often confused. The ficus indica or banian (it received the name of banyan from the Indian merchants, Banjans, by whose means it was propagated), is called in Bengal Njagrôdha and Vata (the Dutch call it "the devil's tree"). The ficus religiosa is called ashvattha, and pippala. They plant the one by the side of the other with marriage ceremonies in the belief that otherwise the banian would not complete its peculiar mode of growth. Hence arises a most pleasing contrast between the elegant lightness of the shining foliage of the ficus religiosa and the solemn grandeur of the ficus indica with its picturesque trunks, its abundant leafage, its spangling of golden fruits, its pendulous roots, enabling it to reproduce itself after the fashion of a temple with countless aisles. It affords cool salubrious shade, a single one forming in time a forest to itself, and sufficing to house thousands of persons. The leaves of both supply excellent food for elephants, and birds and monkeys delight in its fruit, which, however, is not edible by man, nor is its wood of much use as timber. The pippala does not grow to nearly so great a size as the other, never attaining so many stems, but nothing can be more graceful than its appearance when, overgrowing from a building or another tree; its leaves tremble like those of the aspen (Lassen, i. 255–261, and notes). Under its overarching shade altars were erected and sacrifice offered up. To injure it wilfully was counted a sin (an instance is mentioned in Bp. Heber's "Journey," i. 621). A most prodigious Boddhi-tree, or rather five such growing together, still exists in Ceylon, which tradition says was transplanted thither with most extraordinary pomp and ceremonies at the time of the introduction of Buddhism into the island. They grow upon the fourth terrace of an edifice built up of successive rows of terraces, forming the most sacred spot in the whole island. Upon the above supposition this Boddhi-grove would be something like 2000 years old. Several very curious legends concerning it are given in a paper called "Remarks on the Ancient City of Anarâjapura," by Captain Chapman, in Trans. of R. As. of Gr. Br. i. and iii. The Brahmans honoured it as well as the Buddhists, and made it a parable of the universe, its stem typifying the connexion of the visible world The oppression of solitude appears to have overcome Shâkjamuni at last, and he consequently took the resolution of journeying to Vârânasî to