← back to post

… King Ashoka’s wife became jealous of the King’s devotion to the Bodhi Tree, and she poisoned it! Luckily, a cutting from the Bodhi Tree had already been taken by Buddhist monks to Sri Lanka, where it flourished. A cutting from this Son/Daughter-of-the-Bodhi-Tree was brought to Bodh Gaya and planted at the site of the original tree. It is this second tree, well over two thousand years old, that we visit. It is this second tree that kindly dropped one of its leaves for me on my third visit to the Mahabodhi Temple, giving me a keepsake I will always treasure.