1 a legion of demons--i.e. death, deadly sins, and evil passions. That slip is now represented by the sacred tree of Anuradhapoora, at which place it arrived B.C. 307 in charge of the priestess Sanghamitta.2 The representation of a plant in a vase, commonly seen in Buddhist temples, is intended to depict this shoot in the golden flower-pot in which it was brought to Ceylon.3 The sacred tree of Anuradhapoora may now with sufficient accuracy be termed a grove; it occupies the terraces, and some of its limbs project through the masonry in the sides of four square platforms raised on each other, each stage being of so much less size than that on which it is built as to allow of a path around, from which steps lead up to the higher terraces. The tree stands in the centre of an enclosed space, in which are remains of buildings reared in its honour, and many trees or shoots that have sprung from its roots or its seeds. The long-continued existence of this tree would appear incredible, were it not for the self-renovating powers of the Ficus religiosa. And those who have seen this venerated memorial will acknowledge that to eradicate all its members would be a task as difficult as it would be unworthy. None 1 From Mara, death, lust, cupidity. 2 Sent by Dharmasoka, king of India, to the king of Ceylon. In that island the form of the leaf of this tree, under the native dynasty, was not allowed to be painted or sculptured on any article which was not royal property. 3 Vance describes the sculpture representing a tree in a flower-pot which was found amongst the ruins TREES AS RELIGIOUS EMBLEMS. 175 of its many stems or limbs are of great size, nor do they appear to be of great age. Still there it stands, having maintained itself for twenty-one centuries. It has also furnished shoots not only to every temple and village in Ceylon, but to many places in other countries which profess the Buddhist religion. The Ficus religiosa grows wild in the forest, but any one that has derived its origin from the sacred tree at Anuradhapoora is surrounded with a terrace, on which there is a miniature altar, where any one may offer flowers to the Buddha. Many of its descendants far surpass in size any of the stems of the parent tree, and it is usually under their grateful shade, and impressed with its religious influence, that the natives of Ceylon hold their village courts and councils. The Cingalese also believe that in the ceaseless rustling of the foliage of this beautiful tree they hear the unintelligible whisperings of the village ancestors, and that the leaves are stirred by the spirits of " the rude forefathers of the hamlet." The emblem now under consideration-viz., the tree on the sculptured stones of Scotland-like that in the worship of Mithras, Hermes, Brahma, Buddha, and others, may possibly have been derived from a common origin, and certainly as a Buddhist emblem existed previous to the era of Gautama Buddha, or 543 years B.C. The legends of Buddhism even mention the particular trees that were consecrated as the emblems of those Buddhas who preceded Gautama.1 It is 1 A further proof of the antiquity of the tree as an emblem or an object of mystery, is the Cingalese legend that the Kalpawruksha, the all-produc ing and all-sufficing tree of Buddhist cosmogony, still flourishes in a world below or within the earth. There, it is said, also exists the race of Nágas, therefore necessary to look to earlier times for the establishment of the tree as a religious emblem, and it is a curious fact that in Cingalese cosmogony there is the tree possessing properties and producing events bearing an extraordinary analogy to some of those described in the first book of Genesis. This is the more remarkable from other coincidences in the Cingalese account of the creation with that given in the Bible; whilst, at the same time, the discrepancies on the whole are too great to admit of the Cingalese being deemed merely a perverted copy of the Scripture record. To explain the place which the tree called Kalpawruksha holds in Buddhist cosmogony, it is necessary to give an outline of the present formation of the world as described in Cingalese works. The earth having been destroyed by fire, with its oceans and atmosphere, formed one chaotic mass. The fire was eventually overcome by water, which covered the earth in every part, until a great wind in part absorbed and dissipated the flood, so that portions of land, the present visible world, appeared. Then succeeded five extended periods, when immortal beings visited, but were not restricted to the earth. In the first of these periods there was no vegetation; in the second the vegetation was of the nature of mushrooms; in snakes possessing human intellect and the form of the Nága (cobra di capello). The supercession of the early snakeworship may account for part of the legend, but the mystery of the tree remains unexplained. On considering the expression Kalpawruksha as a whole, it is "the tree producing whatever is desirable ;" but kalpa is an immensely - extended period of time, and wruksha a tree, and probably relates to the cosmical mystery of the progressive foundation of the world according to Buddhists. |