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Peepal (sacred fig)
पीपल (peepal)
A fig with heart-shaped leaves drawn out into a long thin tail, so the canopy shivers in the faintest wind.
👀 How to recognise it
The leaf tail is the giveaway. The bark is pale and smooth, and the tree drops its leaves briefly in spring before flushing coppery-pink new ones.
Where to see it
Delhi
The tree the Buddha sat under, and the tree Krishna names as himself among trees in the Bhagavad Gita. Peepals are almost never felled, which is why the biggest trees in an Indian city are usually this species.
Lodhi Garden · Sanjay Van · Shantivan & Parks Beyond Red Fort
Govardhan
Peepals are planted at the tanks and left wherever they seed themselves, so on a circuit walked in the heat they are the practical shade as well as the marked trees. Platforms are built around the older trunks to sit on.
Mansi Ganga · Kusum Sarovar
Mathura
A peepal that seeds itself in masonry is left to grow, so the trees mark the oldest walls in the city: the riverfront, the fort and the lanes behind the ghats. Their trunks are wrapped with thread and given water in the morning.
Vishram Ghat · Raman Reti, Gokul
Vrindavan
A peepal is left standing wherever it seeds itself, including inside a wall, which is why so many old Braj buildings carry a tree growing out of them. Trunks are commonly wrapped with thread and given water in the morning.
Vrindavan Parikrama Marg · Keshi Ghat · Gahvar Van (often)
Agra
The tree the Buddha sat under, and the tree Krishna names as himself among trees in the Bhagavad Gita. Peepals are almost never felled, which is why the biggest trees in an Indian city are usually this species.
Ram Bagh (Aram Bagh) · Taj Nature Walk · Mehtab Bagh
Haridwar
The tree the Buddha sat under, and the tree Krishna names as himself among trees in the Bhagavad Gita. Peepals are almost never felled, which is why the biggest trees in an Indian city are usually this species.
Rajaji National Park, Chilla
Kolkata
The tree the Buddha sat under, and the tree Krishna names as himself among trees in the Bhagavad Gita. Peepals are almost never felled, which is why the biggest trees in an Indian city are usually this species.
AJC Bose Indian Botanic Garden & the Great Banyan · The Maidan
Pushkar
The peepal is sacred in three religions at once and is protected everywhere by custom rather than law: threads are tied round the trunk, lamps set at the roots, and a platform is often built around the base for people to sit on.
Pushkar Lake · Naga Pahar (Snake Mountain) (often)
Rishikesh
Opposite the entrance of Bharat Mandir, one of Rishikesh's most ancient temples, a peepal, a banyan and a bel have grown into one tree with entwined roots, read as the three gods of the Trimurti and said to be over 250 years old.
Ujjain
The tree the Buddha sat under, and the tree Krishna names as himself among trees in the Bhagavad Gita. Peepals are almost never felled, which is why the biggest trees in an Indian city are usually this species.
Shipra River and Shri Ram Ghat · Dewas Tekri (Mata Tekri)
Varanasi
The peepal at Sarnath is not a symbol of the Bodhi tree but a cutting of its lineage: the Bodh Gaya tree was carried to Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka in the third century BCE, and saplings were later brought back from there.
Sarnath Deer Park · Assi Ghat