FICUS INDICA. Linn. Banyan tree.
P. Bengalcnsis, Linn. 1 Urostigma Bengal., Mig.
But, Bat, Bar, . . BENG. Maha nooga-gass, . SINGH. Pa-nyoung, . . . BURM. Kiripelle, . . . Ahlada rnara, . . CAN. Ala maram . . TAM. Arbor de rais, . . rola. Marri chett'u, . . TEL. Vats, vriksha, . . SANSE.
The Indian fig tree grows in most parts of India and Ceylon. Its fruit, the figs, grow in pairs, and when ripe are about the size and colour of a middle-sized red cherry. If the seeds drop into the axils of the leaves of the palmyra tree, the roots grow downwards, embracing the palmyra trunk in their descent. By degrees they envelope every part except the top, whence, in very old trees, the leaves and head of the palmyra are seen emerging from the trunk of the banyan tree, as if they grew from it. Hindus regard such unions with reverence,. and e,all them a holy marriage instituted by Providence. Some of the banyan trees cover an immense space even when comparatively young. In the Botanical Gardens at Calcutta, when Dr. Falconer ascertained the age of the great banyan tree, which is still the pride and ornament of the garden, people were alive who remembered well its site being occupied in 1782 by a date palm, out of whose crown the banyan sprouted, and beneath which a devotee sat. The editor, in 1834, paced at noon the outer shadow of its branches, and the circumference was near 360 paces. Dr. Hooker, writing after that, mentions that this tree was 80 feet high, and threw an area 300 feet in diameter into a dark, cool shade. The editor paced it again, at noon, in 1863, and the circumference was still 100 paces. Large banyans are common in India, but few are so symmetrical in shape and height as that in the Calcutta Gardens. Dr. Roxburgh had seen such trees full 500 yards round the cir cumference of the 'branches, and 100 feet high, the principal trunk being more than 25 feet to the branches, and 8 or 9 feet diameter. Marsden mentions a remarkable banyan tree near Manjee, 20-miles west of Patna in Bengal, diameter 360 to 375 feet, circumference of shadow at noon 1116 feet, circumference of the several stems, in number fifty or sixty, 921 feet. Under this tree sat a naked devotee, who bad occupied that situation for 25 years ; but he did not continue there the whole year through, for his vow obliged him to lie, during the four cold months, up to his neck in the waters of the river Ganges. One of them has long been famed at Allahabad, and which is still represented by a withered stem in the underground cave at Patala puri. There was no doubt a very ancient and venerable fig tree at Allahabad, perhaps for some centuries for it is alluded to in various vocabularies, as Midini, etc.; it is also described in the Kasi-khauda and Kurma Purana. The first notice, however, is in the Ramayana (b. 11, sec. 41 and 42), of Rama with his wife and brother resting under the shade of it after crossing the Jumna, so that not only was the tree then in the open air, but it was on the opposite side of the river to that on which it is now traditionally venerated.
A remarkably large banyan tree. grew on an island in the river Nerbadda, ten miles from the city of Broach, in the province of Gujerat, and was described by Colonel Sykes. It was called
the Kabir Bar, a name said to ,have been given to it in honour of a saint, but possibly from the Arabic adjective kabir, great. It -was supposed to be that which Nearchus described. Forbes in his Oriental Memoirs mentions its circumference RS of 2000 feet ; and its overhanging branches, which had not thrown down aerial roots, stretched over a much larger area. The tree had as many as 320 large trunks and-Over WO smaller ones, and was capable of giving shelter to 7000 men.
High floods, ono particularly in 1820, have since carried away the banks of the island on which it grew, and with it a portion of the tree. Indian armies, when in that neighbourhood, have en camped around it ; and at stated seasons Hindu festivals are held there, to which thousands of votaries repair. The banyan tree is alluded to in Paradise Lost as that when Adam and Eve ' Both together went Into the thickest wood : when soon they choose The fig-tree ; not that kind for fruit renowned, But such as, ftt this day, to Indians known In 3Ialabar and Dekhan spreads her arms, Branching so broad and'Iong, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillared shade, High overarched and echoing walls between.
There, oft, the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, Shelteis in cool, aud tends his pasturing herds At loopholes cut through thickest shade : these leaves They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe, And, with what skill they had, together sewed, To gird their waist.' The banyan tree, however, is not, as Milton sang, remarkable for the broadnese of its leaf, though the branches spread to a great extent, dropping their roots here and there, which, so soon as they reach the ground, rapidly increase in size till they become as large as, and similar to, the parent trunk. As the banyan tree gets old, it breaks up into separate masses, the original trunk decaying, and the props becoming separate trunks of the different portions. The banyan hardly over vegetates on the ground ; but its figs aro eaten by birds, and the seeds deposited in the crowns of palms, -where they grow, sending down roots that embrace and eventually kill the palm, which decays away ; the drops or aerial roots yield a heavy hard timber, and, when well pre pared by water seasoning, oiling, etc., are valued for tent poles, spars of small vessels, etc. The wood of the trunk is not employed in India, but Mr. Rohde had used planks, sawn from large drops, after they had been seasoned in water with advantage ; for knife-boards it is excellent'. In Ceylon, Mr. Mendis says, it is uaed for common furniture and house buildings. A white glutinous juice is extracted by incision front which bird lime is prepared ; and it is applied to the mouth to relieve toothache. It is also considered a valuable application to the soles of the feet when cracked and inflamed. The bark is supposed by the Hindus to be a powerful tonic. The leaves are pinned together to form platters, off which Brahmans and Hindus eat. Much lac is often to be collected from this tree.—Uttara Rama Cheritra, note, p. 302 ; Hooker's Him. foam. ; Mars(kn ; Thw. ; Mr. Rhode ; lieber, Journ. i. p. 68.