The record for this fig traces it, cutting by cutting, back to the tree the Buddha is said to have sat under.
Photo: Craig Franklin (CC BY-SA 3.0 AU)
Bodhi Tree
Ficus religiosa
Most of these trees have a planting date, because with a bodhi the lineage is the point. We map 7 of them, in 4 cities.
Cuttings are carried from tree to tree back toward Bodh Gaya, and Thai temples record the year one arrived the way they record a relic. Wat Saket's went in in 1818, brought home by two monks sent abroad by King Rama II who came back after three years with cuttings instead of the relics they were sent for. Wat Phra Kaew's dates from 1864 and grows inside the most photographed temple complex in Thailand, where almost nobody photographs it. Wat Benchamabophit's was planted in 1900, nine years after Thailand received its first direct cutting from Bodh Gaya itself. The fourth in Bangkok is Lan Pho on the lawn at Thammasat University, where the protest that brought down a dictatorship began in October 1973. Singapore's stands on Pearl's Hill.
Brisbane
Oahu
The tree the Buddha is said to have sat under has descendants, and one of them grows in downtown Honolulu.
Singapore
Singapore's first prison stood on this hill, and so did its first hospital for the poor.
Bangkok
Two monks left Bangkok on a mission from King Rama II and came back three years later with tree cuttings instead of relics.
Inside the single most photographed temple complex in Thailand grows a tree that gets photographed by almost nobody.
A single tree on a university lawn became the starting point for the protest that ended a Thai dictatorship.
When Thailand received its first-ever direct cutting from the actual Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya in 1891, King Chulalongkorn did not plant it right away.
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