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4 9 0 p i a n t h o t e , T 9 e g e î^ / , o n R T^ljcîc/,
The village girls in Hertfordshire lay the pod with nine Peas under
a gate, and believe they will have for husband the man who first
passes through, or, at any rate, one whose Christian name and
surname have the same initials as his. It is always considered
a good augury to dream of Peas. In Suffolk, there is a legend
that the Lathyrus Maritimus, or Everlasting Pea of the sea-side,
sprang up on the coast there for the first time in a season when
greatly needed ; and Fuller says of this particular Pea that “ in a
general dearth all over England, plenty of Peas did grow on the
sea-shore, near Dunmow, in Suffolk, never set or sown by human
industry, which, being gathered in a full ripeness, much abated
the high price in the markets, and preserved many hungry families
from perishing.”
P E A C H .—There is an old tradition that the falling of the
leaves of a Peach-tree betoken a murrain. There is a superstitious
belief in Sicily, that anyone afflicited with goitre, who on
the night of St. John, or of the Ascension, eats a Peach, will be
cured, provided only that the Peach-tree dies at the same time ;
the idea being that the tree, in dying, takes the goitre away with
it, and so delivers the sufferer from the afflicition. In Italy, as a
charm to cure warts, Peach-leaves are carefully buried in the earth,
so that as they perish the wart may disappear. To dream of
Peaches in season denotes content, health, and pleasure.
P E A R .—Among the ancients, the Pear was specially consecrated
to Venus. Columella knew a species called Pyrus Venerea, ihe
Pear of Love. The Scots claim that “ fair Avalon,” the Celtic “ Isle
of the Blest,” is an island in Loch Awe, Argyleshire ; and the Gaelic
legend changes the mystical Apples into the berries of the
Pyrus cordata, a species of wild Pear, found both in the island of
Loch Awe, and in Aiguilon. On the Continent, there is a belief
that orchards are infested by malignant spirits, which attack the
fruit-trees, and in the Département de l’Orne, to drive away the
demons which attack Pears and Apples, the peasants burn the
Moss on the trunk and branches, singing the while an appropriate
rhyme or incantation. In Aargau, Switzerland, when a boy is
born, they plant an Apple-tree; when a girl, a Pear. To dream
of ripe Pears betokens riches and happiness ; if unripe, adversity ;
if baked, great success in business ; to a woman a dream of Pears
denotes that she will marry above her in rank.
P E E P U L .—The Ficus religiosa, the Asvattha or Pippala of the
Hindus, is a tree held in the highest sancffity by the Buddhists,
near whose temples it is always found. It is this tree—the Bodhidruma,
the Tree of Wisdom—under which Buddha sat absorbed
in a, species of intellecitual ecstacy, and which his followers regard
as the tree of creation, life, wisdom, and preparation for Paradise
as well as the yielder of ambrosia and rain. From ancient Vedic
tradition the Buddhists have inherited the worship of this sacred
I
p l a n t h o t e , Is e g eQ t i/ , o n e l h i ) t \ e f . 4 9 1
tree : they say that at the hour of Buddha’s nativity, whilst around
Kapilavastu suddenly arose magnificent woods, an enormous Asvattha,
or Bo-tree, sprang from the very centre of the universe.
-Hiouen-thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, professed to have found
the Bodhidruma, or some tree that passed for it, twelve hundred
years after Buddha’s death, at a spot near Gaya Proper, in Bahar,
where still may be seen an old temple and ruins. De Gubernatis
tells us that there is represented in the Kdthaka Upanishad a
heavenly cosmogonic Asvattha under precisely the same form as
the Indian Bo-tree. “ The eternal Asvattha, it is said, has its
roots above, its branches below ; it is called the Germ, Brahma,
Ambrosia; beneath it all the worlds repose, above it nothing
exists.” With its wood and that of the Acacia Suma (Sami) the
sacred fire is lighted—the Asvattha representing the male, the
Sami the female. The Asvattha, in rubbing the Sami, engenders
the fire, and thus becomes an emblem of generation. From its
heavenly origin and from its maintaining the fire of purification, the
Bo-tree is credited with marvellous medicinal properties. Into a
vase made of Asvattha-wood the priests pour the divine drink
Soma. In the Atharvaveda, says De Gubernatis, we are told that
the Asvattha grows in the third heaven, and produces the Ambrosia
under the name of Kushtha, or fiower of the Amrita. He who eats
the ambrosial food becomes intelligent. The cosmogonic tree of
the Vedas is also the Tree of Intelligence, hence Buddha, the
apostle of intelligence, sought refuge beneath its shade. In a
book of travels by two Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, translated by Mr,
Beal, we find it stated that the only spot indicated by the gods as
propitious to the acquirement of supreme wisdom is beneath the
tree Peito, which the translator identifies with the Peepul, Bo Tree,
or Ficus religiosa. In the same narrative we learn that the gods
construaed from the tree Sal [Shorea rolusta) to the tree Bo a
splendid road, three thousand cubits wide. The young Prince
Buddha traverses the road during the night, surrounded by the
Devas, the Nagas, and other divine beings. Under the tree
Peito Buddha walked from east to west, and was worshipped
by the gods for the space of seven days; after that the gods con-
struaed, north-west of the tree, a palace of gold, where Buddha
stayed for seven days. Then he repaired to the lake Mukhahnda,
where he sought the shadow of the tree Midella. Then the rain
fell for seven days, and so the Naga Mukhahnda came forth from
the lake and sheltered Buddha with his hood. As showing the
extreme fondftess of Buddha for the Bo-tree, it is related by the
Chinese that at the commencement of his conversion, he withdrew
habitually beneath the tree Peito to meditate and fast._ The Queen
became exceedingly uneasy, and, in the hope of bringing back
Buddha to his home, she gave orders for the Peito to be cut down.
But at the sight of his beloved Bo-tree razed to the earth, so
bitter became the grief of the seer, that he fell in a swoon to the