BO-TREE. The name given to the sacred fig-tree, Ficus reliyinsa, or pipal (see PEErtm). under which the Buddha, Prime Siddhartha, sat during the night in which he received supreme enlightenment and attained to the Buddhaship. As bo-tree literally means 'Tree of Wisdom,' from Sinhalese bo = Slat. Pali bodhi, wisdom, enlightenment, the name is applicable to any tree under which a Buddha receives the great spiritual enlightenment. The particular bo-tree, or pipal, under which the Sakya sage, Gotama, was seated when he became Buddha, was situated at Uruvela, the modern Gaya, in Behar, 150 miles southeast of Benares. The scene at tendant upon the coming of the supreme enlight enment at dawn, under the bo-tree. is described with poetic imagination in the Pali writings of the Buddhists, and is familiar to English readers in Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia. The spot thus hallowed by tradition is marked by an ancient temple, nine stories high, which is now undergoing restoration. The present bo-tree at
Gaya can hardly itself be very old, but from its sacred connections it is one of the two most ven erated trees in the world. The second sacred bo tree is situated at Anuradhapura, in northwest ern Ceylon. This is said to be the oldest his torically authenticated tree in existence. It is stated that when Buddhism was established in Ceylon, the Buddhist abbess Sanghamitta, a sis ter of the royal missionary Mahinda, brought a branch from the original bo-tree at Gaya, and planted it at Anuradhapura, B.C. 245. From this branch the present tree grew up, and its history is traced with the utmost detail for cen turies in the native chronicles. Its leaves are most sacred relies for the thousands of Buddhist pilgrims that visit it. Buddhist temples else where have bo-trees planted by them.