Friday, November 17, 2023

Asia Unveiled: A visit to Buddhist Sri Lanka


This video plays fast and loose with the facts. For example, No. 20 states that the Na tree, or Ceylon Ironwood, was the tree under which THE Buddha attained enlightenment. That is completely wrong and an egregious error because the actual tree under which Siddhartha the Buddha Gautama awakened under a tree that lives on the island, known as the Bodhi tree -- at least a cutting of the original tree from Bihar (proto-India). That tree is destroyed, but its direct ancestor lives on: Mesua ferrea.

Four earlier buddhas had as their enlightenment tree the Na tree, but not THE Buddha, the Buddha of our time, the historical Shakyamuni. Visiting his tree is a tree because it is enormous and hallowed and the oldest historically attested tree in the world: Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi Tree

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