Udumbara (Buddhism)

Alleged udumbara flower in Lyon, France

In some Buddhist texts, the flowers of the uḍumbara are enclosed within its fruit, as in all figs (see fig pollination and fig fruit). Because the flower is hidden inside the fruit, a legend developed to explain the absence (and supposed rarity) of the visual flower: in Buddhism, the flower was said to bloom only once every 3000 years and thus came to symbolize events of rare occurrence, such as the advent of a wheel-turning king or a Buddha.[1][4] In early medieval Japan and possibly elsewhere this flower is believed to be capable of saving the lives of those dying from disease.[5] It is mentioned in the Heian Japanese classic Utsubo Monogatari.

Allusions to this symbolism can be found in texts such as Theravada Buddhism's Uraga Sutta (Sn 1.1, v. 5)[6] and Mahayana Buddhism's Lotus Sutra, both described further below.

A recent sighting of this flower in 2010 was reported by a Chinese nun, who could distinguish them from assuming it to be lacewing eggs because they omitted fragrance of sandalwood.[7]

The uḍumbara is one of several trees known as "strangler figs" due to their often developing as seeds dropped on the branches of a host tree (by animals eating the fig tree's fruit) and, as the branch-borne fig tree grows, it envelops its host tree with its own roots and branches, at times crushing and replacing the host tree. Based on this life cycle, the Mahārukkha Sutta (SN 46.39) likens "sensual pleasures" (kāma) to such fig trees, causing their human hosts to become "bent, twisted, and split" (obhaggavibhaggo vipatito seti).[8]

In both the Digha Nikaya[11] and Buddhavamsa,[12] the uḍumbara tree is identified as the tree under which the Koṇāgamana Buddha attained enlightenment.[13]

In the Majjhima Nikaya's Kaṇṇakatthala Sutta (MN 90), the Buddha uses the uḍumbara tree in a metaphor to describe how the member of any of the four castes is able to achieve the same quality of spiritual "emancipation" or "release" (vimutti) as a member of another caste:

[Buddha]: "I tell you, great king, that there would be no difference among them [the four castes] with regard to the release of one and the release of another. Suppose that a man, taking dry sala wood, were to generate a fire and make heat appear. And suppose that another man, taking dry saka (teak?) wood ... another man, taking dry mango wood ... another man, taking dry fig [udumbara] wood, were to generate a fire and make heat appear. Now what do you think, great king: among those fires generated from different kinds of wood, would there be any difference between the glow ..., the color ..., the radiance of one and the radiance of another?"

[King Pasenadi:] "No, lord."

[Buddha]: "In the same way, great king, in the power that is kindled by persistence and generated by exertion, I say that there is no difference with regard to the release of one and the release of another."[14]

In the Pāli Canon's Sutta Nipata, the uḍumbara fig tree is used as a metaphor for existence's ultimate insubstantiality (in English and in Pali):

He who does not find core or substance in any of the realms of being,

like flowers which are vainly sought in fig trees that bear none,
— such a monk gives up the here and the beyond,
just as a serpent sheds its worn-out skin.[15]

Yo nājjhagamā bhavesu sāraṃ
vicīnaṃ pupphamīva udumbaresu,
So bhikkhu jahāti orapāraṃ
urago jiṇṇamiva tacaṃ purāṇaṃ.[16]

In the post-canonical Visuddhimagga (XXI, 56), the uḍumbara tree is again used to symbolize the "emptiness of all formations" (sabbe saṃkhārā suññāti, Vsm XXI,53):

Just as a reed has no core, is coreless, without core; just as a castor oil plant, an udumbara (fig) tree, a setavaccha tree, a palibhaddaka tree, a lump of froth, a bubble on water, a mirage, a plantain trunk, a conjuring trick, has no core, is coreless, without core, so too materiality ... feeling ... perception ... formations ... consciousness ... eye ... ageing-and-death has no core, is coreless, without core, as far as concerns any core of permanence, or core of lastingness, or core of pleasure, or core of self, or as far as concerns what is permanent, or what is lasting, or what is eternal, or what is not subject to change.[17]