HIND. Aswaththamu, . . . , Ari-alu, . . . MALEAL. Kallaravis, . . . .
This large, handsome tree grows in most of the countries of the S.E. of .Asia. It is frequently to be.met with near pagodas, houses, and other buildings. One at Gyaine, South Behar is said to have been that beneath which Stik'ya was reposing when his views BB to his duties became clear to tarn, and if so, is more than 2400 years old. It is also held in veneration by the Hindus, because the god Vishnu is fabled to have been born under its branches. In the Somavati festival, the Mahratta women circumanibulate " a pipal tree, and place offerings on it, when the new moon falls on a Monday. The pipal tree is preferable for avenues to the banyan. The leaves are heart-shaped, long, pointed, wavy at the edge, not unlike those of some poplars; and as the footstalks are long and slender, the leaves vibrate in the air like those of the aspen tree (Populus trimula). Silk-wortns prefer the leaves next to those of the mulberry. The roots are
destructive to buildings, for if once they establish themselves amongst the crevices, there is no get ting rid of them. Pipal bark is deemed a good tonic ; the lac insects also flourish on this tree. The Chinese remove the cellular tissue or green tnatter of the leaves, and, covering the skeleton with a coat of varnish or gelatine, paint figures of birds, flowers, etc., on its surface. It is the most sacred of trees with the Buddhists, who say it was under this tree that Gautama slept, and dreamed that his bed was the vast earth, and the Himalaya mountains his pillow, while his left arm reached to the Eastern Ocean, his right to the Western Ocean, and his feet to the great South Sea. This dream he interpreted to mean that he would soon become a Buddha. A branch of the tree was sent to Ceylon by Asoka, and it flourishes there as the Bo Tree.--Makom's Trs.; Mason ; O'Sh.;