In my last two posts on Islamabad (here and here) I talked about the woods and the forest trails that I love so much and take to them whenever I can.
In those woods, at the foot of the Margallas, until a few years ago, there was a very large and very old tree — some believed it to be hundreds of years old. Its gnarled branches sprawled over a very large area around the tree. Next to the tree was a small concrete kiosk with a concrete bench.
It was a pipal tree (botanical name: ficus religiosa). Pakistani residents of Islamabad were mostly unaware of the presence of this tree and those who knew about it were generally indifferent to it. But the tree attracted many expatriate residents, mostly from South East or East Asian diplomatic missions based in Islamabad. They would come, sit on the bench and contemplate and admire the tree.
It was said to be a bodhi tree.
What is a bodhi tree and how it came to be in Islamabad?
As many of us would remember from our history books, that is, if one graduated from high school before the 70s (for afterwards they stopped teaching history of pre-Muslim era of the subcontinent in schools), prince Siddhartha Gautuma meditated under an old pipal tree in a village named Gaya near Patna, Bihar some 2500 years ago. Ultimately he achieved nirvana or was ‘awakened.’
Consequently the tree under which he sat was named Bodhi, meaning “awakening.” Sidhartha Gautuma became Buddha (the awakened) and the village where all this happened came to be known as Bodh Gaya, which name it still carries, and the Bhodi tree that grows there today is believed to be a direct offspring of the original Bhodi tree. In the centuries after the Buddha, the Bodhi tree became a symbol of the Buddha’s presence and an object of devotion for Buddhists.
A little more history before I get to the pipal tree in the woods of Islamabad.
King Ashoka (died 232 BC), the third Maurian king, converted to Buddhism and became a great advocate of the religion and actively propagated Buddhism throughout his empire. The Mauran Empire included, other than the present Northern India, the Gandhara region, which included the area around present day Islamabad, the Peshawar valley and parts of Afghanistan and Iran. Taxila (then Taxshashila), Peshawar (then Parshpura) and Charsaddah (then Pushklavati) were important cities of Gandhara. It was at this time that Taxila reached the peak of its development and became the center of Buddhism. Chandra Gupta Mauria and Asoka spent time at Taxila and so did their famous political adviser, Chanakya, who taught at Taxila.
King Asoka’s daughter, Sanghamitra, who became a Buddhist nun, is said to have taken a cutting of the Bohdi tree from Bhod Gaya to Sri Lanka and planted it at Anaradapura, the ancient capital of the island, where it still grows. Many temples throughout the Buddhist world have bodhi trees growing in them, which are or are believed to be offspring of the one from Anaradapura.Now, back to Islamabad.The very old pipal tree that grew in the woods of Islamabad was also believed to be an offspring of the Bodhi tree in Gaya, possibly planted centuries ago by a devotee alongside a temple that might have existed then. Taxila, as you would know, is only a few miles from Islamabad as the crow flies and is full of Buddhist monuments - stupas, statues and remains of monasteries.
In the 1980s Ziaul Haq ruled Pakistan. In his zeal to “Islamize” the country he encouraged and helped build madrassas all over the country, mostly with Saudi money. One such madrassa was built in the woods of Islamabad, not too far from the bodhi tree. Over the years the madrassa expanded, as most madrassas do, violating the building codes and encroaching upon state land, to become one of the largest madrassas in Islamabad. Today it occupies 5-6 acres of prime real estate in Islamabad and has a sprawling building complex and a very large playing field - larger than any school or college in Islamabad might have.
The madrassa houses a couple of thousand students ranging in age from 6 to 26 or even older. One sees them during breaks in their classes when they swarm into their playground and, as if the playground were not large enough, overrun the nearby children’s park, driving the children and women out. It is quite annoying for the residents - and a bizarre sight - to see young bearded men swinging and sliding like crazy on the swings and slides meant for young children of the residential area. Other contributions of these madrassa students to the community are: defaced street signs and walls with posters soliciting sacrificial animal skins, and vandalized letterboxes.
Fortunately, because of its very large girth, the bodhi tree did not burn down completely even though it was badly damaged. It still stood with half of its branches still intact. The city administration tried to preserve what was left of the tree. They even posted guards at the site for sometime after the incident to protect the tree from any further attacks. When I saw it last, a few years ago, it was still green and seemed as if it was struggling to recover from the wounds inflicted on it.
Last week, having returned to Islamabad after two years, I decided to look up the tree, as if you would look up an old friend, and see how it was doing. I was shocked to see that there was no tree there!
Only a few logs of the decapitated tree were lying around like dead bodies. The concrete kiosk next to it was partially demolished, the bench was gone, and the remaining walls covered with graffiti. Through the woods I could also see the madrassa — some construction work going on it. Still expanding, I guess.
[quote comment="39581"]@Asma: Bibi,People even created a fake sect in the name of Islam a century back which is more damnable than cutting a tree. In Karachi several trees has been cut by City Govt and they provided no reason but noone raised a finger because it was all done to create new malls and plazas rather Madrassahs.
As far as crying over destruction of Bamyan, What Taliban did was introduced thousands of years go back by Abraham[AS]. I am intrested to know that resident psuedo intellectual and enlightened class hav3
+e enough courage to declare Abraham[AS] a terrorist and illetrate Madrassah guy Publicly? I know they wouldn’t as they have to keep themselves intact someway with religion as well. Hyporcrisy,what else :-)[/quote]
Muhtaram, Thanks for pointing this out too, since I wouldn’t have known otherwise, Firstly as for the creation of sect you are talking about here — damnable is what YOU think, dont preach ur personal diverted thoughts here … THIS is just not the right forum or any other post on THIS blog, IMHO.
I dont know about karachi, but in Islamabad many many protests at various levels were staged against massive cutting of trees even for roads …. !
Are you talking to me when you say something about BAMYAN — the link I’ve provided here says about BANYAN as in bargad ka darakht is also known as banyan trees, and the tree that this post narrates about is BANYAN too, IMHO. As per banyan stupas, why to cry over spilt milk?
Just like we are ignoring and chosing to remain queit about soem of teh zealous comments made by our Muslim compatriots.
Ohhhhh my God!!! Quiet?
is sadeghi pe kon na mar jaye Khuda.
Khuda ka ya Jisey bhe mantay ho uska khof karo yaar! If this baseless rant is the example of Silence and mazloomiat then I must contact someone at GHQ to provide me a new dictionary.
Beside that several comments by MQ and other liberals and few posts reflects that Pakistani liberals have considered Adil Najam their “messiah” and his website to promote their agenda by prtending as Mazloom. Do remember that your “silence” is all stored in database of this website. For you and like minded, everyone who disagree with you and say in favor of religion appears “Zealous or Mullah”. The attitude is similar to people who consider “Zealous or Kafir” to everyone who appears a bit different in religious views. You don’t look good to criticize some Indian about his views about other country or belief when you don’t appear different than him.
Yes Jabir Sahab I am well aware of the history of our “Capital”.
As far as the rant by MQ, His post and then Asma’s ISB’s metoblog Link give no clue that it was cut by Madarassah managment. from the link given by Asma:
Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, in-charge of the Jamia Faridia, said that he was not bothered by the tree. He said that he had noticed several times that some people tried to burn it and had chopped most of its branches.
I wonder did Asma bibi make any attempt to read the content of her own blog first before sharing her grieveness about the tree?
Even MQ provided no proof[asusual] that tree was BURNT by madarassah managment. MQ’s basless rant is refuted by the statment of Abdul Rasheed. There were several trees in Karachi which were cut down by someone and later builders built new buildings on those areas. Now If someone blames those builders then it would be sign of ignorance and insanity because those builders found the surface without any tree. Blaming a Madrassah just because it was near to that tree sounds ridicilous. Also there is no proof that the tree was sacred to Buddhist. THe BUddha would have travelled several places in the region and would have taken shelter under various trees. In this way the whole area should be preserved since Buddhist celebrity honoured the place. Sounds crazy to me.
What I personally feel that the author made this post to express his anti-Islam feelings which he has often expressed in various comments.
Suresh, we are being polite in ignoring and chosing to remain quiet about yours and others assertions about what a wonderful and all loving religion hinduism is. Just like we are ignoring and chosing to remain queit about soem of teh zealous comments made by our Muslim compatriots. There is plenty for Muslims to worry about in their behavior that needs to change. There is as much for you Hindus to worry about, and its not limited to the Gujrat genocide the violence of castes, etc. But, lets not get into that here. That is your business and I hope that you and others will join the many Hindus who are raising their voice against those injustices on Inian sites, just as many of us Pakistanis are joining here to raise our voice against what is wrong with us.
When both our societie are mature enough to have solved our own internal inconsistencies then, maybe, we can try to start pointing fingers at others. Wish us luck in resolving our own challenges, and please spend yoru own time on dealing with your own challenges; there is plenty there to keep you occupied.
Adnan, Most of Islamabad was established on ’shmashaan ghaats’ - cremation sites. The mourners of alleged bodhi tree will have to demolish their houses to please the affected party.
Explains well the haunted nature of certain city dewellers :)
*grin*- It seems that resident enlightened class have come back to life after severe coma due to removal of CJ by an enlightened ruler. :-)
Islamabad is the greateset encroachment on the face of Pakistan
*nods*-It’s like residents of Israel[Illegitimate state] cry for violence but then the mourner will not have any answer to reply your question. *grin*
@Asma: Bibi,People even created a fake sect in the name of Islam a century back which is more damnable than cutting a tree. In Karachi several trees has been cut by City Govt and they provided no reason but noone raised a finger because it was all done to create new malls and plazas rather Madrassahs.
As far as crying over destruction of Bamyan, What Taliban did was introduced thousands of years go back by Abraham[AS]. I am intrested to know that resident psuedo intellectual and enlightened class have enough courage to declare Abraham[AS] a terrorist and illetrate Madrassah guy Publicly? I know they wouldn’t as they have to keep themselves intact someway with religion as well. Hyporcrisy,what else :-)
The mourners don’t have guts to speak about this by an enlightened ruler.
This is an excellent blog. The “liteness” of the articles even while discussing very serious issue is amazing. Descent of a society which can neither save nor tolerate an innocuous Bodhi tree is depicted in a thought provoking manner. Pervaiz Munir Alvi made a valid point on Hinduasm absorbing other small religion in its fold, to avoid such incidents.
In India, the Hinduism always absorbed goodness of every other culture that it came across. Rig veda says “may noble thought come to us from all
the direction”. No doubt it absorbs the religions such as Buddism in its fold.
The influence of Sufism is all to see. Our “bhajans” and for that matter the whole “Bhakti” movement is the result of influence of Sufism.
Many Christian in India call their Bible as ‘Satyaveda” in line with Vedas, sacred to Hindus. One recently build church in south Indian sate Kerala, welcome you not by a holy cross, but by “Om”, the most sacred symbol, syllable and all that represent Hinduism. Upanishad says ” Whoever knows this syllable, obtains all that he desires”. I saw in another church, the Christ sitting in Gautama Buddha’s posture beneath a Bodhi tree!
I accidentally stumbled upon this forum while googling and found it very interesting. Here is my two cents: I refer to posts by Pervaiz Munir Alvi and Ahsan above regarding India, Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism. I am a Hindu Indian and concur with a lot of what they say. I lived in India until recently and still visit so i guess I’m in touch with the pulse. Ahsan questions whether smaller religions of India will be absorbed into Hinduism. This is unlikely to happen, but it certainly is a two way give-take street. Hinduism imparts and absorbs, which is probably why other faiths feel less threatened in India. I have seen Indian “Hindus” absorb features from other faiths. I have also seen people from other faiths absorb essentially Hindu customs. As an example, I know several Muslim and Christian families whose women wear the “mangalsutra” or “Taali” to indicate their married status. Similarly I get to see people from all religions visit certain dargahs, temples and churches in an atmosphere of great faith. Little customs like taking the blessings of elders by prostrating before them or touching their feet before venturing out on an important chore etc also have been adopted by many faiths. These are little examples that came to mind. Hinduism is more a way of life than a religion per se and I see that it evolving and encompassing while “letting” (for want of a better word) other religions thrive side by side.