NEW DELHI: A descendant of the great tree under which Prince Siddharth became the Buddha (the enlightened one) after having ruminated for years on the sorrow and disease that afflict human life, is itself dying slowly, triggering panic among Buddhists who love and revere it.

The Bodhi — or ‘enlightened’ tree — is believed to be the fourth or fifth descendant of the original tree that existed during the days of the Buddha 2,600 years ago. A type of fig tree (ficus religiosa), it is one of the most venerated trees in the world. For Buddhist pilgrims, who come to the site at Bodhgaya in Bihar, eastern India, from all over the world to pray, it is the second holiest shrine, after the Buddha’s birthplace.

But excessive adoration is killing the tree. Buddhist worshippers invariably come with offerings of food — Indian sweets, yoghurt, milk and ghee (clarified butter) — which attract insects that then devour the tree. They crawl into the bark, with the younger ones feeding on the tender twigs, leaving secretions that generate fungal growth, turning the leaves black.

During the Kalchakra festival last January, for example, hundreds of thousands of Buddhists gathered under the tree to hear the Dalai Lama lead the special prayers during which monks were served tea and food.

Pilgrims also tie flags to the tree or burn incense or light lamps or candles as offerings of thanks to the Buddha. The candle soot and the flags make it hard for the leaves to breathe. “The infection tends to subside during winter but with the onset of warm weather, the damage done by the ants swarming all over the tree is particularly severe,” said A. K.Singh of the local Agriculture Research Institute.

Experts blame the body responsible for maintaining the site, the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee, for failing to keep people and food away. While the committee claims to have followed the Institute’s instructions to spray the leaves with pesticide, it admits that keeping the 2,000 daily pilgrims at arm’s length is hard.

“We have quarantined the tree and all the offerings are made outside the enclosure around it,” said temple committee general secretary Kalicharan Yadav. “We try to keep people away but there is tremendous pressure from pilgrims who want to sit near the tree or carry out some a symbolic act as part of their prayers.”

As the birthplace of Buddhism, Bodhgaya has been an international place of pilgrimage for a long time. Near the tree is the spectacular Mahabodhi temple which houses a colossal Buddha. Buddhists from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Tibet, Bhutan and Japan have established monasteries and temples around the Mahabodhi temple and the tree.

After the Hindu emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism in the 3rd century, his daughter took a shoot of the original tree to Sri Lanka where it was planted in a monastery and still flourishes. A cutting from this tree was brought back to India to replace the original after it died.

Legend has it that Ashoka’s wife almost had the tree secretly cut down because she was jealous of the time Ashoka spent under it and convinced that he loved it more than her. But it grew again and a protective wall was also built around it. Many sacred trees in India and other countries are originally raised from seeds brought from this ancient tree.

In fact, pilgrims to Bodhgaya — now a UNESCO-declared world heritage site — still collect saplings of the Bodhi tree and nurture them in their own countries. Death of the tree would mean a crisis for Buddhists all over the world.

UNESCO guidelines state that no construction should be allowed within a one-km radius of the Mahabodhi temple. But local contractors, keen to cater for increasing numbers of tourists, are erecting buildings anyway. Alarmed at the disregard of its rules, UNESCO has warned that it will withdraw Bodhgaya’s special status if its guidelines continue to be flouted.

The committee also plans to try painting the trunk and main branches of the tree with a lime-copper sulphate mix used for controlling fungal disease.

Buddhist monks, meanwhile, are in a panic about the diseased tree and the search is on for an alternative. The issue has divided the monks. A section of Indian monks want to procure the tree locally but other monks want to bring a branch of the tree from Sri Lanka.

According to the temple committee, the present tree is about 130 years old and was planted around 1871 by British archaeologists.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.