Note 6 — Chapter XXXVIII · AT CEYLON. RISE OF THE KINGDOM. FEATS OF BUDDHA. TOPES AND MONASTERIES. STATUE OF BUDDHA IN JADE. BO TREE. FESTIVAL OF BUDDHA’S TOOTH.

This should be the pippala, or bodhidruma, generally spoken of, in connexion with Buddha, as the Bo tree, under which he attained to the Buddhaship. It is strange our author should have confounded them as he seems to do. In what we are told of the tree here, we have, no doubt, his account of the planting, growth, and preservation of the famous Bo tree, which still exists in Ceylon. It has been stated in a previous note that Aśoka’s son, Mahinda, went as the apostle of Buddhism to Ceylon. By-and-by he sent for his sister Sanghamittâ, who had entered the order at the same time as himself, and whose help was needed, some of the king’s female relations having signified their wish to become nuns. On leaving India, she took with her a branch of the sacred Bo tree at Buddha Gayâ, under which Śâkyamuni had become Buddha. Of how the tree has grown and still lives we have an account in Davids’ ‘Buddhism.’ He quotes the words of Sir Emerson Tennent, that it is ‘the oldest historical tree in the world;’ but this must be denied if it be true, as Eitel says, that the tree at Buddha Gayâ, from which the slip that grew to be this tree was taken more than 2000 years ago, is itself still living in its place. We must conclude that Fâ-hien, when in Ceylon, heard neither of Mahinda nor Sanghamittâ.