In my childhood, I played a lot under the shadows of big banyan and peepal trees, because they are ubiquitous in all temple towns to small villages in India. Hence, I still have lots of memories attached to these trees. As a tree lover, I like these big trees especially more for the peepal! This could be for varied reasons, like it’s been part of our culture and the mythological or philosophical stories which I heard before. My dad used to say ” Life throttles even for a small wind like of peepal leaf hence be wise to be strong.” These words still holds me even after his demise!!
In my apartment, we have a peepal tree under which I watch kids playing daily from my balcony. Their amusement has it’s own notoriety! Often times, I hear it’s rumbling sound during my early morning walks. It consoles me whenever I stop there while I am stressed out!! Today, while I am watching it’s leaves throttle, I thought of writing about it into this blog post. Thank you Peepal for all the things which you gave me and continued giving…..I am like your ‘Kid Of A Joy’ :)-
The Indian Sacred Peepal
Indigenous to the Gangetic basin, the peepal is held in great veneration both by Hindus and Buddhists alike throughout the country. It is the well-known Bodhi tree—The Tree Of Wisdom—under which: Gautama sat for meditation for 49 days, and received Light. Thereafter, he emerged as the Buddha-“enlightened one.” The original Bo Or Bodhi tree has been replanted from its own seed and perpetuated at Buddha Gaya through the last 2500 years. Seedlings of this free have been sent out from time to time to various Buddhist shrines.
The pipal or peepal attains a fairly large size and affords shade, making a good avenue tree. Except in and around regions, the tree is cultivated for its shade and sanctity throughout the country, more particularly around temples and wells. The trunk gets fluted as the tree advances in the age. The bark is pale grey and smooth, peeling off in irregular rounded flakes..
The tree is almost evergreen, being leafless for a very short while during February. It has broad ovate leaves with a pronounced tall- Iike tip, one to three-inches long. The young leaves appear in the Gangetic basin some time during early spring and are usual reddish pink colour. The upper surface of leaves turns shiny green later on.
The flowers are of three kinds-mole, female and gall. The flowers are invariably associated with insects which help in their fertilization. The function of the gall flowers is to help reproduce insects. They act as a receptacle for their eggs.
The fruits (known as figs) ripen from April to June and on some trees in October-November. They appear in the angle between the leaf-stalk and the twig, and are depressed and almost spherical. They are about half an inch diameter, and usually carry insects. Dark purple colour when ripe, the figs are avidly sought by birds, more particularly by the green pigeon. The pepal (Hindi) known by a variety of names pippala (Sanskrit); aswat (Bengali); ashvatha (Marathi); ravi (Telugu) ; arasu (Tamil); ashvatha (Kannada) ; and Ficus religiosa (Latin).
The tree is easily raised from seed sown in boxes in fine loan covered with manure and admixed with charcoal. Young self-grown seedlings are commonly met with and are easily transplanted. In nature, one often finds the pipal growing on other trees- as a parasite. It grows fast, finally throttling its host.
The peepal can stand severest of droughts. It is also frost-hardy. In the abnormal droughts peepal can alone escape and unscathed. In many places it withstood notorious frost!
The peepal is sacred tree. It is never cut by Hindus (except for road widening/metro works, alas!). It affords excellent leaf-fodder for goats, camels and elephants. Its timber is useless!
This is all about my dear Sacred Peepal Tree!!! Live long again….
sivaayyala 