1405 / 1424
1405
Because it is the symbol of immortality, because it is the source and centre of
Auroville.
Because traditionally in India the banyan tree is believed to be inhabited by a divine
force and thus venerated as a holy presence. Since olden times women have
painted its trunk with white chalk and tied a red thread around it to worship the
sacred banyan tree. Because it is the seed of the banyan tree that contains the
nature of creation, says an old Hindu story. The story goes that the sage Uddalaka
once asked his young son to break open a fruit of the banyan and find out what was
within. The boy saw only tiny seeds. The father asked the boy to break open the
seeds and see what was within. ‘There is nothing at all’, said the boy. ‘My son, that
unseen subtle essence within the seed contains the huge Nyagrodha banyan’, said
Uddalaka. ‘In that unseen essence all things exist. It is the Truth. It is the Self. And
thou art that.’
That is why traditionally, before cutting any branch, or root, or trunk, of a banyan
tree, one should perform a special puja in order to appease the wounded spirit of
the tree, to ask for permission from the earth which sustains the tree and from the
beings that under and among its branches find shelter. Mother knew this very well,
so well that She asked the workers at Matrimandir’s site not to hammer any nails
into the trunk of ‘our’ banyan tree. Since then, so many years have passed and our
banyan tree has grown in size and strength, secondary trunks have developed
beside the main original one, and many aerial roots have found their way down to
the ground to support the growth of the most outreaching branches.
Or at least this was true before last February 15
th
.
On that day a group of people approached the banyan tree armed with long ladders
and electric saws and different kinds of blades and axes, and started to
energetically cut aerial roots and branches and secondary trunks.
On that day I tried to ask these people if they were conscious of what they were
doing. I tried to ask them why they were cutting the aerial roots (four of them were
chopped in the end) around the main trunk, the very roots which might have given
the trunk the support it needed in the future because of the fungal infection which
is making it hollow and die. I am repeatedly writing ‘I tried’ because I was not even
allowed to give full expression to these questions.
Those people kicked me away without listening to me and aggressively proclaiming:
‘You are nothing. Go away from here. You are nothing.’ The only question of mine
which got an answer was a desperate ‘Who gave you permission for this, since no
expert has been called yet to give a final evaluation about what should be done?’
The architect answered this question. And his answer was: ‘
I
gave permission.’
Well, I thought that in Auroville everybody was ‘something’, that decisions were
taken collectively, questions answered, promises kept. I was wrong.
Not only our sacred banyan tree has been brutally treated and more than 30 aerial
roots, small and big, have been cut, and long, big branches have been ‘pruned’, but
the way this has been done shows that the people who did the job (who are doing
the job, as they have not stopped yet, as they have brought their electric saws and
blades and axes under the banyan tree again after the recent celebrations) do not
know much of the life of banyan trees. They do not seem to know that very often
the main trunk after a number of years dies and is replaced by the aerial roots
which reaching the ground have grown into new trunks for the support and life of
the tree. They do not seem to know that to live and prosper a banyan tree needs
aerial roots to reach the ground and support the branches which otherwise will
crack under the weight of their length or the force of a storm; they do not seem to
know that one of the oldest banyan trees in India has more than 230 supporting
roots and 3000 secondary trunks, or that O.T. Ravindran, one of India’s best known