Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi: The Ancient Sacred Fig of Anuradhapura

Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi is a sacred fig tree (Ficus religiosa) in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, said to have grown from a branch of the tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. Sri Lankan tradition dates its planting to 288 BC. It is one of the most important places of Buddhist pilgrimage in the world and is often described as the oldest living tree planted by humans with a recorded date.

Background

The Buddha is said to have reached enlightenment while meditating beneath a fig tree at Bodh Gaya in north-eastern India, now the site of the Mahabodhi Temple. That tree, known as the Bodhi tree or “tree of awakening”, became an object of veneration. Its descendants were planted at monasteries across the Buddhist world.

In the 3rd century BC the Maurya emperor Ashoka actively promoted Buddhism. According to the Sri Lankan chronicles, his son, the monk Mahinda, led a mission to Sri Lanka and converted King Devanampiya Tissa, who ruled from Anuradhapura.

The planting

The chronicles, chiefly the Dipavamsa (compiled around the 4th century AD) and the Mahavamsa (around the 5th or 6th century AD), tell what followed. Queen Anula and many women of the court wished to become nuns, but only a nun could ordain them. Devanampiya Tissa therefore asked Ashoka to send his daughter Sanghamitta, a senior nun, together with a branch of the Bodhi tree.

The branch, described as the southern branch of the original tree, was carried by ship to the port of Jambukola in northern Sri Lanka. From there it was taken in procession to Anuradhapura and planted in the royal Mahamegha (Mahamevna) garden. The chronicles add that saplings from it were distributed to other sites on the island.

These accounts were written centuries after the event and include miraculous details. The core of the story, a cutting brought from India in Ashoka’s time, is accepted by many historians as plausible.

The question of the date

The date of 288 BC comes from the traditional Sri Lankan chronology, which counts from a Buddha’s death placed in 544 or 543 BC. Most modern scholars think this chronology runs about six decades too early. They place Devanampiya Tissa’s reign and the arrival of the tree in the mid-3rd century BC, roughly 250–240 BC.

Either way, the tree’s continuous care has been recorded for more than two thousand years. Kings of Anuradhapura and later rulers repeatedly built terraces, railings and walls around it, and monks have tended it without interruption.

The site today

The tree stands on the highest of several stepped terraces in Mahamevna Gardens, near other monuments of the ancient city of Anuradhapura. Its heavy branches are supported by metal props, and a gilded railing surrounds it. Other fig trees growing on the lower terraces, known as parivara bodhi, are regarded as its companions.

Pilgrims bring flowers, light lamps and pour water or milk around the terrace. Every December, on the full-moon day of Unduvap, Sri Lankan Buddhists commemorate Sanghamitta’s arrival with the tree and the founding of the order of nuns. The Sacred City of Anuradhapura, including the tree, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982.

A place of tragedy

On 14 May 1985, during the Sri Lankan civil war, gunmen of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam attacked the shrine and other places in Anuradhapura. About 146 people were killed, many of them pilgrims and worshippers. The attack became one of the most remembered atrocities of the conflict, and security at the site was strengthened afterwards.

Myths and facts

It is sometimes said that Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi is the oldest tree in the world. This is not correct: some wild trees, such as bristlecone pines in North America, are far older. Its distinction is that its planting is recorded and dated by a continuous historical tradition.

A widely repeated claim holds that the present Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya grew from a cutting of the Anuradhapura tree after the Indian tree was lost. The history of the Bodh Gaya trees is complex and only partly documented, so this connection should be treated with caution.

Timeline

• c. 250–240 BC (traditionally 288 BC): A branch of the Bodh Gaya tree is planted at Anuradhapura.
• c. 4th century AD: The Dipavamsa records the arrival of the tree with Sanghamitta.
• c. 5th–6th century AD: The Mahavamsa gives a fuller account of the planting.
• 11th century: Anuradhapura ceases to be the island’s capital, but the tree remains venerated.
• 1982: The Sacred City of Anuradhapura becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• 14 May 1985: An armed attack at the shrine and in the city kills about 146 people.

Why it matters

Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi is a living link between Sri Lanka and the origins of Buddhism in India. For more than two millennia it has been tended as a symbol of the Buddha’s awakening, making it a rare case where a single tree carries the memory of an ancient historical event.