{"id":104927,"date":"2020-07-27T16:00:27","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T23:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=104927"},"modified":"2020-07-27T16:00:27","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T23:00:27","slug":"in-sri-lanka-a-south-american-flower-usurps-a-tree-sacred-to-buddhists-and-hindus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/07\/27\/in-sri-lanka-a-south-american-flower-usurps-a-tree-sacred-to-buddhists-and-hindus\/","title":{"rendered":"In Sri Lanka, a South American flower usurps a tree sacred to Buddhists and Hindus"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Malaka Rodrigo<\/a> Courtesy Mongabay<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

COLOMBO \u2014 With its blends of soft red, pink and yellow, the fragrant cannonball flower<\/a> (Couroupita guianensis<\/em>) is a favorite of Sri Lanka\u2019s Buddhists when making floral offerings during religious activities. They call it sal<\/em>, with religious tales linking the tree to the birth and death of Gautama Buddha, the founder of the faith. Hindus in the region call it nagalingam<\/em>, a flower offered to Lord Shiva, the most powerful of gods in the Hindu pantheon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The problem, however, is that the cannonball tree isn\u2019t the sacred plant that countless devotees believe it to be. In fact, it didn\u2019t arrive in Asia until the late 1800s, brought over from its native Central and South America by the British. That means there\u2019s no way it could be part of the canon of Hinduism or Buddhism, which were established more than 2,000 years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The cannonball tree gets its common name from its large, round fruit. Its scientific name, Couroupita guianensis, refers to the Guianas, the region of South America from where the plant was first described. Image by Mokkie via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Handbook to the Flora of Ceylon<\/a><\/em> by the British botanist Henry Triman<\/a> (compiled between 1893 and 1900) doesn\u2019t mention the cannonball flower; nor does Flora of British India<\/a><\/em> by the botanist J.D. Hooker<\/a> in 1875.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These books contain details on both introduced and naturalized plants but the cannonball tree is conspicuous by its very absence in these historical scientific compilations on the island\u2019s fauna, indicating that the tree was not naturalized or found locally at the time,\u201d said Siril Wijesundara<\/a>, former director-general of the Department of the Botanical Gardens of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cannonball tree was introduced to Sri Lanka with the planting of the first sapling at the Royal Botanical Gardens of Peradeniya<\/a>, way back in 1881,\u201d Wijesundara told Mongabay. He added the plant adapted well to Sri Lankan soil, reaching fruit-bearing stage after about 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A century ago, when the plant was still relatively new here, there was no confusion about the identity of the cannonball tree, Wijesundara said: it was recognized as an introduced plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s no mention of the local name sal on this 1901 plaque that records the planting of a cannonball tree (Couroupita guianensis) sapling by England\u2019s King George V to mark his visit to Sri Lanka, indicating that the confusion over the tree is much more recent. Image courtesy of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To commemorate the visit by England\u2019s King George V<\/a> to Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), a cannonball tree was planted at the Royal Botanical Gardens in 1901. The commemorative plaque in the local language, Sinhala, identifies the tree only by its genus, Couroupita. <\/em>If the confusion over the name sal was prevalent then, botanists who documented Sri Lankan flora would have definitely used the local name for the script, introducing the tree in the local language,\u201d Wijesundara said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shelomi Krishnarajah<\/a>, the current head of the Royal Botanical Gardens, told Mongabay that the original sal tree mentioned in Buddhist lore is the tree known as Shorea robusta<\/a><\/em>. It\u2019s common throughout the Indian subcontinent, including in Nepal, where the Buddha was born. Even the legend matches. Peradeniya Botanical Gardens have several blooming Shorea robusta<\/em> trees,\u201d Krishnarajah told Mongabay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not hard to see how the fragrant cannonball tree got incorporated into the origin stories of two of world\u2019s most ancient religions, thanks to its flower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cannonball flower has six petals with a base at the center, with a small bulge in the middle and a hood. At the base around the bulge, there are stamens with pollen, and on the hood that covers the bulge there are longer stamens without pollen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Buddhist interpretation is that the bulge represents a stupa, a shrine of sorts in which relics are preserved, while the stamens at the base represent devotees worshiping the relics. The long stamens on the hood are considered gods who have descended from the heavens to pay homage to the stupa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Hindus, the name of the flower, nagalingam, combines the Sanskrit naga<\/em>, meaning cobra, and lingam<\/em>, the symbol of Lord Shiva. According to Hindu mythology, the bulge at the base is considered the lingam, while the hood represents a cobra offering protection to the lingam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The original sal described in Buddhist tales is believed to be Shorea robusta, which was historically found only in India and Nepal, but in more recent years, has begun growing in Sri Lanka. Image courtesy of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Multiple misidentifications  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As C. guianensis<\/em> has thrived since its introduction to Sri Lanka, it\u2019s been increasingly mistaken for the sacred sal tree over the actual sal, S. robusta<\/em>. One of the most notable mistakes is the inclusion of the cannonball flower in a textbook prescribed for state-run schools, effectively mainstreaming the wrong information to the public from the outset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Nimal Gunatilleke<\/a>, emeritus professor of forest ecology at the University of Peradeniya<\/a>, the mistaken identity of the real sal tree has led to serious problems at times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a conference on Ayurvedic science, a research team testing an Ayurvedic recipe reported that the combination of medicinal compounds didn\u2019t work. Gunatilleke looked into the compounds used by the researchers and found that the team had used the bark from the wrong sal tree. Obviously, that combination wasn\u2019t going to work as the properties were different,\u201d he told Mongabay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Non-native sal being planted to mark the inaugural peace talks between Sri Lankan government and the separatist Tamil Tigers rebel group in 2002 indicates how the misidentification has become widespread. Image via TamilNet.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The imposter species gained higher levels of recognition and became a symbol of peace\u201d in 2002, ahead of peace talks facilitated by Norway between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebel group. The facilitators wanted both delegations<\/a> to plant a flowering tree that was significant to both Buddhists and Hindus, and mistakenly picked a cannonball tree sapling to symbolize the new journey toward making peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those peace talks collapsed, but the cannonball tree\u2019s identity as the sal tree remains strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Banner image of the religiously significant cannonball flower. With its blends of soft red, pink and yellow, the fragrant cannonball flower<\/a> (Couroupita guianensis) is among the favorite flowers of both Buddhists and Hindus and frequently offered in veneration. Image courtesy of Asanka Dewage.<\/em>
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by\u00a0Malaka Rodrigo Courtesy Mongabay COLOMBO \u2014 With its blends of soft red, pink and yellow, the fragrant cannonball flower (Couroupita guianensis) is a favorite of Sri Lanka\u2019s Buddhists when making floral offerings during religious activities. They call it sal, with religious tales linking the tree to the birth and death of Gautama Buddha, the founder of the faith. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}