The Tree Associated with the Birth of Buddha

In Asoka (Saraca indica Linn)—A Cultural and Scientific Evauation, 1972, Biswas and Debnath mentioned that Mayadevi while holding a branch of a tree in Lumbini garden gave birth to Buddha and according to Nidana Katha, it was a Sala (Shorea robusta); to Mahavastu it was a plaksa; according to Huien-Tsang it was an Asoka tree (Saraca indica).

In Forests and Trees Associated with Lord Buddha (http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ancientnepal/pdf/ancient_nepal_139_02.pdf), Bisanta Badari, mentioned many different trees and the forests existing at the time of Buddha. Of particular interest is the association of five types of trees associated with birth of Buddha, of which the Asoka tree (Thawka in Myanmar) is said to be identifiable from the leaves depicted in various sculptural panels of Buddha's nativity scene. He listed Asoka (Thawka), Pipal, Sala or Sal, Mango, and Plaksha. 

The birth of Buddha is described in Nidana Katha (http://www.kelasa.org/book/English/rhys_davids__buddhas_birth_stories.pdf) as:

Now between the two towns there is a pleasure grove of sal-trees belonging to the people of both cities, and called the Lumbini grove. At that time, from the roots to the topmost branches, it was one mass of fruits and flowers; and amidst the blossoms and branches swarms of various-coloured bees, and flocks of birds of different kinds roamed warbling sweetly. The whole of the Lumbini grove was like a wood of variegated creepers, or the well-decorated banqueting hall of some mighty king. The Queen beholding it was filled with the desire of besporting herself in the sal-tree grove; and the attendants carrying the queen, entered the wood. When she came to the monarch sal-tree of the glade, she wanted to take hold of a branch of it, and the branch bending down, like a reed heated by steam, approached within reach of her hand. Stretching out her hand she took hold of the branch, and then karma-born winds shook her. The people, drawing a curtain round her, retired. Standing, and holding the branch of the sal-tree, she was delivered.

I am ignorant of the exact source from which most of us Myanmar Buddhists have drawn our belief on the tree of Buddha's birth. In our traditional notion it has been an Ingyin tree.  Because of that, at least one source of our belief could be the Nidana Katha as we have seen. Leaving aside the possibility that Buddha's birth tree could be another kind of tree like Asoka (Thawka in Myanmar) or other, I felt we need to be clear about what the Sal tree of Lumbini is, and what it is not.

When I googled for Sal tree images I was surprised to find half of them are pictures of Cannonball tree labeled wrongly as Sal (Shorea robusta). So I wasn't surprised when I found one webpage [Flora in Myanmar Culture: Ingyin and Myatlay in Waso (July), 31 July 2014, Today magazine] by a Myanmar scholar that committed the same error.

The Cannonball tree with the mass of flowers on the trunk seems to me a most unattractive tree for a queen to hold onto a branch while it is in flower, or in fruit, or even when it is bare of flowers or fruits. Besides, the tree is a native of south Americas and not of India or Nepal.

In one webpage for example, Significant Buddhist Trees (not Bodhi tree), 1 April 2013 (http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=16314), Shorea robusta was mentioned but the picture of Couroupita guianensis was shown and the error becomes glaring when it says " Sal is one of the most important sources of hardwood timber in India, with hard, coarse-grained wood that is light in colour when freshly cut, but becomes dark brown with exposure.  The wood is resinous and durable, and is sought-after for construction, although not well suited to planing and polishing. The wood is specially suitable for constructing frames for doors and windows. The dry leaves of sal are a major source for the production of leaf plates and leaf bowls in northern and eastern India."

That was in fact the description for the Shorea robusta of the family Dipterocarpaceae that include, for example, Myanmar hardwood trees like In, Kanyin, Thingan, Thitya, and Ingyin. In contrast the Cannonball tree is a softwood tree of the family Lecythidaceae native to northeastern South America (see Encyclopedia Britannica).

I looked in my standard references for "Ingyin".

The last two sentences in the above dictionary entry referring to the Cannonball tree clearly state that (i) the tree is called Cannonball tree due to the shape of the fruit, and (ii) though not a member of Ingyin (Dipterocarpaceae) family it is wrongly called Lumbini Ingyin in Myanmar.

On the other hand, source-4 in the above table stated that Shorea robusta is a cultivated species known as Lon-mani-ingyin or sal. I think herein is confusion with what Myanmars popularly called Lon-mani-ingyin (or Lumbini Ingyin) which is the Cannonball tree, with the correct species: Shorea robusta. I very much doubt that Sal (Shorea robusta) would be cultivated for flowers. It is common knowledge that the Cannonball tree is cultivated and its flowers sold as Lon-mani-ingyin in Myanmar. Myanmars cherished this flower all the while assuming that it is the flower associated with the Queen Maha Maya giving birth to Buddha in the Sal grove of Lumbini.

As for a good deal of confusion over misidentifying the Sal with the Cannonball tree internationally, I can think of no good explanation. In the post How Sal Trees arrived in Sri Lanka, Dr. Lakshman Ranasinghe (http://www.nation.lk/edition/fine/item/38684-how-sal-trees-arrived-in-sri-lanka.html) told how the Cannonball tree as well as the Sal arrived in his country.

Sal is not native to Sri Lanka and the first tree was sown at Paradeniya Botanical Gardens in February 29, 1980, by the late King Birendra Bir Shah Dev of Nepal, and, flowered in May, 2012. Lately, seeds of the Indian Sal were brought from Nepal, and were germinated in Peradeniya Gardens. More than 900 plants raised from the seeds of the Sal Tree of Southern Nepal, have been gifted to temples around Sri Lanka. 

The Cannonball tree was introduced into Ceylon in 1881, and has abundantly flowered and flourished since 1898. It is often seen beside the temples and has been in effect the Sal Tree substitute for Sri Lanka. Because of the religious linkages, it seems quite possible that we got our Couroupita guianensis from Sri Lanka. We could not rule out the possibility that we got this tree from India also. Incidentally, it is interesting that two movies on the life of Buddha, one in Sri Lanka and another in India has been released quite recently. According to Dr. Ranasinghe, they both depicted Queen Maha Maya giving birth to Buddha under a Cannonball tree in the Sri Lankan version, and what looks like the Cannonball tree also in the Indian version. He felt they should correct the scenes to show the Sal tree instead.

This nativity scene painted in Myanmar traditional style quite some time before the Cannonball tree became established around 1898 in Sri Lanka, unmistakably shows Shorea and not the Cannonball tree. So the mistaken identity of the Buddha's birth tree must have come into the life of we Myanmars at least after this picture had been painted.

Nevertheless, the following notes by Bikhu Nyanasushita (What is the Real Sal Tree?, 2010) make me realize that such confusions may not have existed solely between Sal and Cannonball tree or confined only to countries like Sri Lanka or Myanmar or Thailand and could have extended to more diverse tree species and countries.

There are no reports of cannonball trees forming groves and they are not growing in the wild in Asia.

... Since its introduction from South America, the cannonball tree has become a sacred tree in both the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. In Hindu India it is planted in Shiva temples and is called Shiv Kamal or Nagalingam. The flowers are said to resemble the hood of a Nāga (sacred cobra) protecting a Shiva linga. The planting of cannonball trees as sacred trees can only be a recent addition to these traditions for it is certainly not the sal tree of the ancient Buddhist and Hindu texts.

In Japan yet another pretty tree with large white flowers, the deciduous camellia or Stewartia pseudocamellia, is regarded as the sal tree. It is called shāra, 沙羅, from Sanskrit śāla. Being native to the mountains of Japan, it can withstand the cold winters, and is often planted near temples and in parks, with signs stating that in the shade of this tree the Buddha was born and passed away.

Could the Cannonball tree been introduced and then adopted in Myanmar by the common people innocently as "simple Sinhalese peasants could make this harmless and innocent mistake".  We don't know. The confusion could just have been accidental. Or was it due to the expatriate Buddhist missionary monks zealously spreading to the world in good faith the misidentified "Sal", as Shravasti Dmmika said (Thoughts At Vesakha, 25 May 2013).

One difference between Sri Lanka and Myanmar is that we have close relatives of the Sal as native trees. In fact source-4 referenced earlier gives 17 species of Shorea as growing in Myanmar among which is our Ingyin (Shorea siamensis).