Exploring Kafirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose?

Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? Exploring Kāfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? MICHAEL W. MEISTER Abstract This article is the consequence of excavations by the Pakistan Heritage Society and University of Pennsylvania at Kāfirkot North that resulted in the discovery and exploration of an undocumented temple (E) in that fort, and recovery of an important seventh-century cult image broken in two pieces. These were discussed in preliminary reports in The Pakistan Heritage Society Newslet- ter (Khan et al 1998), Expedition (Meister 2000), and the Lahore Museum Bulletin (Rehman 1998). In following through an iconological investigation of the excavated image, I became fas- cinated with the sceptre held in his left hand, which terminated in a cluster of spear-pointed leaves. These could be matched with leaves framing a large textured ‘fruit' used as one of the eight auspicious signs in reliefs from early Mathurā and as the base of one of Mathurā's earli- est liṅga pillars (Meister 2007). Following a long tangled process of deductive analysis, I came to a tentative conclusion that this sceptre was a ‘jambū-dhvaja' and that ‘jambū' in this period of early India was not ‘rose apple' but rather the gigantic fruit of the jack tree. A note on the tangled web of this discovery was offered to an issue of the Journal of Ancient Indian History issued at the time of D. C. Sircar's birth centenary (Meister 2007-08). This note I would like to share along with a full portfolio of illustrations not possible to publish in the original journal. My purpose also has been to probe and question the relativity of our claims to knowledge. Introduction For more than a hundred and fifty years jambū has been assigned as part of the Latin name given in colonial times to India's ‘rose apple' (Eck 1996; Monier-Williams 1899: 412).1 This moderately small fruit tree, Syzygium jambos (syn. Eugenia jambos),2 ‘has several common names, including [...] rose apple, Malay apple, Malabar plum, and jambu. The edible fruit is shaped like a small pear. The plant is native to Southeast Asia but is naturalized in India,' as reported by that modern fount of partially accurate knowledge, the Wikipedia (Sahni 1998: 109; Wujastyk 2004).3 That Eugenia jambos was not a native plant in ancient India, however, can be confirmed from a number of botanically oriented sources.4 Through another information search-site,5 we find: Continent Jambudvipa (Rose Apple Island), also known as Sudarshandvipa, forms the in- nermost concentric island in the above scheme of Puranic dvipas or continents. Its name is said to derive from Jambu tree (another name for the Rose Apple, a kind of black plum). The fruits of the Jambu tree are said to be as large as elephants and when they become rotten and fall upon the crest of the mountains, a river of juice is formed from their ex- pressed juice. The river so formed is called Jambunadi (Jambu river), which flows through 109 Michael W. Meister Jambudvipa, whose inhabitants drink its waters. Insular continent Jambudvipa is said to comprise nine varsas or zones and eight mountains. That the rose apple might be an inappropriate fill-in for the mighty jambū tree described in the Mahābhārata, located on a mountain at the centre of the human-inhabited continent of Jambudvīpa, might seem obvious from one of its early colonial-period notices. The American Druggist reported in February 1887: The Jambu tree plays an important role in Hindu mythology. The Purānas, in particular the Vishnu-Purāna, in giving an account of the created world, places the immense mount Meru in the centre of a group of seven large insular continents, one of which comprises India herself. Upon the mountain Gundhamādhana, situated upon this continent, stands an immense Jambu tree, eternally alive and bearing flowers and fruit, forming, as it were, the great standard of India. From this tree the whole continent receives the name Jambu-dvīpa, and this was sub- sequently used by the Buddhists as a name for India itself. The legend says that this gigantic tree bears fruit as large as elephants: when they fall upon the crest of the mountain from being over-ripe, they pour out juice enough to form the Jambu River, the waters of which are drunk by the inhabitants and render them content and happy. [...] All this, and much more that could be said, shows in how great esteem the Jambu tree has always been held in India. The American Druggist's source for describing the jambū fruit and its importance was probably H. H. Wilson's 1840 translation of the Vishnu Purāna, where Wilson had written: From the Jambu-tree the insular continent Jambu-dwipa derives its appellation. The apples of that tree are as large as elephants. When they are rotten, they fall upon the crest of the mountain; and from their expressed juice is formed the jambu river, the waters of which are drunk by the inhabitants: and, in consequence of drinking that stream, they pass their days in content and health, being subject neither to perspiration, to foul odours, to decrepitude, nor organic decay (Wilson 1840: 116). Scientifically skeptical Americans in The American Druggist, however, further reported that "Prof. Dymock describes the fruit and bark as follows: ‘the fruit, unless improved by cultivation, is about the size and shape of an olive, of a purple color, and very astringent.' [...] At present there is only very little of the seed available here in New York, but an invoice is shortly expected." That an olive and elephant are not the same has eluded conventional wisdom for more than a century. The earliest references to Jambūdvipa surviving are probably those in Aśoka's inscriptions (Thapar 1973: 68, 199),6 and certainly it is early Buddhism that makes much of this continent's sin- gular significance (Malalasekera 1937-38: 941):7 The continent is ten thousand yojanas in extent; of these ten thousand, four thousand are covered by the ocean, three thousand by the Himālaya mountains, while three thousand are inhabited by men. [...] Sometimes in Jambudīpa there are as many as eighty-four thousand cities; this number is sometimes reduced to sixty thousand, forty thousand, or even twenty thousand, but never to less. In the time of Aśoka there were eighty-four thousand cities, in each of which he built a monastery. In the Anguttara Nikāya it is said that, in Jambudīpa, 110 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? trifling in number are the parks, groves, lakes, etc., more numerous the steep, precipitous places, unfordable rivers, inaccessible mountains, etc. In this article I have made a point of citing ‘soft' as well as ‘hard' sources, in this era of the Internet, partly because the distinction between soft and hard evidence is not merely a modern one but has been an important distinction for well more than a hundred years. Anyone using the series of reformulated Gazetteers of the British period knows how prose could often be repeated, reprocessed, and mis-cited (if cited at all). ‘Knowing' often is more ‘soft' than not. Albertina Nugteren (2005: 147) has recently conveniently summarized current knowledge about jambū: ‘In the Jātaka and Lalitavistara accounts of the events preceding the Bodhisattva's birth, it is said that he chose Jambūdvīpa [...] as the con- tinent where he was to be born. [...] The jambū is the rose-apple tree (Eugenia jambolana), which also figures in the story of the Bodhisattva's first meditative experience.' I might point to Alexander Cunningham's (1879: 46) discoveries of the stūpa at Bhārhut, however, and its exceptional narrative reliefs to show that this identification of jambū was somewhat less certain early in the 19th century. Among scenes at Bhārhut was one showing a tree, altar, and six deer, which Cunningham labelled: ‘The Jambu, or Eugenia Jambu. – The tree here identified was recognized by my native followers. It is apparently a holy Tree, as it has a throne beneath it surrounded by a number of spotted deer.' The deer are both stags and does, and gather around the sacred tree as if its fruit were the wisdom offered by the Buddha himself (see Image Portfolio). There is another relief at Bhārhut that is actually labelled jabū naḍode pavate, ‘the Jambū tree on Mt. Naḍoda'. This shows two figures between a tree and an altar, two arms of a tree-spirit extending from the tree to offer a ‘bowl' of food and a vessel of water (Luders 1963: 170).8 Such images at Bhārhut can introduce a whole body of sculptural evidence that has too often not been brought into the discussion of jambū. As we know from continuing debate about another important mythic plant from ancient India, soma, there may be no single botanical answer and there may indeed have been shifting substances and sources over a very long time to fill the role (Wasson 1968). To have physical representations of jambū from the early centuries BCE, contemporaneous with early Buddhist engage- ment with the symbolism of Jambūdvīpa, is a remarkable and largely overlooked opportunity. My own search for jambū began with a different object, an unparalleled 6th/7th century CE sculpture I helped excavate at Kāfirkot above the west bank of the Indus River in Pakistan (Khan et al 1998; Rehman 1998; Meister 2000). This three-faced seated figure holds a sceptre, topped by a cluster of distinctively long pointed leaves from which an aureole of ‘seeds' began. With a variety of ‘soft' and ‘hard' evidence to muster, I came to see this as a jambū-dhvaja, a term Monier-William (1899: 412) cited from the Mahābhārata in reference to the ‘enormous Jambu tree on Mount Meru visible like a standard to the whole continent.' But what was this jambū? A shrub with olive-sized fruit from Southeast Asia? This seemed im- probable. My ‘hard' evidence to change this identification has been from sculptures. My ‘soft' evidence can come substantially from colonial scholarship itself. For that, let me turn to another great monu- ment to British learning in India, Hobson-Jobson. In that exceptional nineteenth-century compendium a debate about botanicals represented at Bhārhut has been recorded: ‘among the Bharhut sculptures [...] there is a fruit represented which is certainly very like the custard-apple [itself another imported plant]'; to this, however, a new edition's editor, W. Crooke, added his own annotation: ‘Dr. Watt says: 111 Michael W. Meister They may prove to be conventional representations of the jack-fruit tree or some other allied plant' (Yule and Burnell 1903: 284-286). Jackfruit - that was a new idea. Hobson-Jobson gave a citation from Pliny that called the jack the fruit ‘whereof the Indian Sages and Philosophers do ordinarily live'; from other sources, a single jackfruit, up to three feet long and weighing seventy-five pounds, was said to be able to feed four ascetics at a time (Yule and Burnell 1903: 440-443; Pliny 1601). More recently, Nugteren (2005: 81) has cited the Vṛkṣāyurveda that ‘Someone who plants a jambū tree would tend towards the dharma of an ascetic (yati).' The vignette from Bhārhut first cited by Cunningham, with a tree his ‘native followers' had identified as jambū, is framed to the left and right by remarkable representations of both mature and young jackfruits and leaves, growing from the meandering wish-fulfilling vine of the coping (Fig. 2). I reproduce representations of jackfruit from both Bhārhut and Amarāvatī in Fig. 1 b, and a detail of the Bhārhut narrative labeled jambū published by Coomaraswamy (1931: 74, Pls. 11, 25, 37).9 Scale, texture, leaf, and significant associations with ascetics, sweetness, etc. contribute to my conviction that Dr. Watt was correct that these are jackfruit, if not also jambū itself. Jackfruit (Artocarpus integrifolius) is ‘believed indigenous to the rain forests of the Western Ghats of India'; it ‘thrives in the Himalayan foothills and from sea-level to an altitude of 5,000 ft. in the south'; ‘The exterior of the compound fruit is green or yellow when ripe. The interior consists of large edible bulbs of yellow, banana-flavored flesh that encloses a smooth, oval, light-brown seed. [...] There may be 100 or up to 500 seeds in a single fruit'; ‘Jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world, reaching 80 pounds in weight and up to 36 inches long and 20 inches in diameter'; ‘Male and female flowers are borne in separate flower-heads. Male flower-heads are on new wood among the leaves or above the female. [...] The female heads appear on short, stout twigs that emerge from the trunk and large branches, or even from the soil-covered base of very old trees [my emphasis]' (Morton 1987: 58-64).10 This unique characteristic of the jackfruit can bring me back to Hobson-Jobson, which cites the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, c. 650 CE: ‘Sometimes the fruit hangs on the branches, as with other trees; but sometimes it grows from the roots'; and Ibn Batuta, c. 1335: ‘fruits borne nearest to the ground are the barkī they are sweeter and better flavoured'; and Nicolo de' Conte, c. 1440: ‘the fruit is also found growing from the roots of the tree underground, and these fruits excel the others in flavour, wherefore they are sent as presents to kings and petty princes' (Yule and Burnell 1903: 442). If I return to the jambū-dhvaja in the hand of my sculpture from Kāfirkot (Fig. 1 b), I can now make a few further observations. Its cluster of spiky leaves resembles leaves of the jackfruit and seems reminiscent of two motifs - a ‘leaf-basket' and ‘vase-of-plenty' - found within sets of eight auspicious signs (aṣṭamaṅgala) in reliefs from early Mathurā, ca. first century BCE/CE. Vase-of-plenty (pūrṇaghaṭa) motifs shown in somewhat later and conventional aṣṭamaṅgala sets are filled with lotuses (Wayman 1989); these early sets instead have bundles of leaves that bring to mind brass pots filled with jackfruit leaves still used in home rituals in Bengal today (Ghosh 1995). The ‘leaf-basket' motif, replaced in later sets by a full-blown lotus, has received little interpretation. VS. Agrawala considered it not among symbols ‘that may be readily identified'; U. P. Shah counted it as a ‘full-grown flower' based on later Jaina sources, but conceded that these earlier ‘Mathurā finds 112 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? represent a stage anterior to the tradition recorded in the Jaina canons'; N. P. Joshi called it simply a ‘basket with garland' (Agrawala 1965: 179; Shah 1955: 110-112; Joshi 1966: 77). Gritli Mitterwallner, however, presciently made a connection between this motif and the basal motif of a rarely discussed liṅga from Mathurā: the foot of liṅga No 15.657 [in the Government Museum, Mathura] is enveloped by leaves, which form a bowl containing some unidentifiable substance (pearls, grain, rice?). The leaf bowl calls to mind similar bowls in the hands of worshipers of Buddha, Jinas, or Brahmani- cal deities in cult reliefs from Mathurā, and of the leaf bowl that is one of the maṅgala symbols on the rims of āyāgapaṭas and cakras dating from the Kuṣāṇa period (Mitterwallner 1984: 20, Pls, 2, 3). Without explanation, Coomaraswamy much earlier had labelled this ‘basket' motif in maṅgala sets ‘paṇṇa-pacchi', a full pouch (pacchi can also mean the pouch that contains the genitals) (Coomaraswamy 1931: 79; Monier-Williams 1899: 631).11 What I add to this discussion is the description of auspicious jackfruits that grow upward from the tree's roots. It is these rare sweet fruits that are represented in these early aṣṭamaṅgala sets at Mathurā. ‘Large as an elephant,' fit for kings, and food for sages, these seed-filled fruit fit well the ethos of India's early experiments in developing an appropriate vocabulary of symbols (Srinivasan 1997: 6).12 A final physical example from Mathurā now can come into focus, a long lintel from the Mathurā site of Bhuteśvara, datable, according to N. P. Joshi, in the first century BCE (Joshi 1966: 80, Pls. 10, 11; Huntington 1985: 161, Pl. 8.41).13 On the reverse are a series of ‘mythical animals' (winged lions). On the obverse are composite winged figures with leonine bodies and human torsos that bear offerings toward a tree, a phallic liṅga at its base, both enshrined by a square vedikā fence. Two composite leonine figures to either side of the tree shrine offer garlands. A further figure to the far right carries a filled ‘leaf bowl' in his left hand, of the sort described by Mitterwallner, and three opening lotuses in his right hand. Between is a third figure holding a branch of another plant in his right hand. Most remarkable, however, is a plant represented behind the single garland bearer that survives on the lintel to the left. Tucked behind his rump (and probably once held in the hand of a second offering-bearer) is an up-turned fruit - a direct match for the up-turned ‘leaf-basket' of early aṣṭamaṅgala sets and the base of the Mathurā liṅga discussed by Mitterwallner. I have called this a ‘jambū-liṅga' and compared it to the ‘jambū-dhvaja' in the hand of the sculpture excavated at Kāfirkot (Meister 2002). That this emblem no longer is understood – or recognized as the auspicious jambū fruit of its period – seems clear enough from the modern confusions I have documented, yet the visual and conceptual evidence is compelling. In the confusions, too, I think there are remnants of memory. A number of sources point toward the Jambukeśvara temple in Srirangam near Tiruchirappalli, the sthala-purāna of which tells the story of a liṅga under a jambū tree (Schulman 1980: 45; Nugteren 2005: 296-299). The Madras District Gazetteer reported in c. 1931 (p. 144) that the ‘old white naval tree (Eugenia jambolana) still exists near the (sanctum sanctorum).' Schulman (1980: 45) identified this nāval tree as wood-apple (Feronia limonia; syn. F. elephantum), known widely in contemporary 113 Michael W. Meister India as bel; Nugteren (2005: 296) instead identified ‘navāl' as jambu (Eugenia jambolana) in Tamil; Sahni (1998: 109), on the other hand, recorded that the black plum (Jamun; Syzgium cumini), in Tamil was neredam and in Guarati jambu, and so the confusion goes on. Most significant certainly is what Nugteren calls the ‘same mythic landscape' (Nugteren 2005: 296), and not the facticity of which plant to call jambū today. A late 19th century source reiterates this landscape particularly well (Folkard 1884: 391): JAMBU. — The Jambu (Eugenia Jambos) is included among the great Indian cosmogonic trees. It is called, says Prof. De Gubernatis, the Fruit of Kings, on account of the great size of its fruit. According to the Vishnu Purāna, the continent Jambudvīpa took its name from the tree Jambu. The fruits of this tree are in point of fact very large, but the fruits of the Indian mythological Jambu attain to the size of an elephant; when they have ripened they fall from the mountain, and the juice which exudes feeds the river Jambu [...]. In the cosmogonic forest of the Himalaya towers the tremendous bulk of the Jambu, and from its roots four great rivers, whose waters are inexhaustible, takes their source. It bears during the entire kalpa of the renovation an immortal fruit, like unto gold, great as the gold vase called Mahākala. This fruit falls into the rivers, and its pips produce the golden seed which is carried away to the sea [...]. From Vedic sources, Nugteren can speak of the cosmic tree: ‘It is like Puruṣa, of whose feet one (eka- pad) covers all beings, and whose other three feet measure out the heavens. This links up with the epic Sūrya, who is composed of two parts, a visible part that radiates light, and a dark, invisible part which is called the leg (pāda)' (Nugteren 2005: 37). From the story told in the late Sthala-purāna of the Jambukeśvara temple - where an ascetic sitting in a jambū grove gave a fruit that fell in front of him to Śiva, then swallowed the seed after Śiva spat it out - she can conclude: ‘That, in this narrative, the tree is said to have sprouted inside the ascetic and to have stuck its branches through the crown of his head may be no more than a product of the universal imagination concerning the interconnectedness of man and nature' (Nugteren 2005: 297). There can be little better an example of shared mythical land- scape than that, to which, perhaps, the sculpture from Kāfirkot and representation of jackfruit from Bhārhut can serve as illuminating physical reminders - and markers for jambū's early existence and importance. Image Portfolio The following sets of images, culled in part from the Web and from older published sources, I have used in lectures on this topic to build a visual weight parallel to the scholastic and textual arguments in the essay. This visual argument must stand equal to the weight of other arguments to transform an ‘olive' once again into an ‘elephant'. Notes 1 Monier-Williams (1899: 412) was initially more cautious, listing jambū as ‘the rose apple tree (Eugenia Jam- bolana or another species); [...] N. of a fabulous river (flowing from the mountain Meru; formed by the juice of the fruits of the immense Jambu tree on that mountain).' 2 www.tradewindsfruit.com/rose_apple.htm (accessed Sept. 7, 2004): ‘shrub to medium-large tree'; www.crfg. org/pubs/ff/roseapple.html (accessed August 15, 2007): ‘The rose apple is a highly decorative evergreen large shrub or small tree growing to about 20 feet.' 114 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? 3 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygium_jambos (accessed June 21, 2007). The Jamun (Java plum), however, is a dif- ferent species (Syzygium cumini) (Sahni 1998: 109); that has recently been claimed to be the true jambū (see Wujastyk 2004). 4 www/tradewindsfruit.com/rose_apple.htm: ‘Native to southeast Asia'; www.crfg.org: ‘The rose apple is native to the East Indies and Malaya.' 5 www.answers.com/topic/jambudvipa (accessed June 21, 2007): ‘The Jambu tree, from which the continent takes its name, is a vast tree thought to be located in the Himalayan region.' 6 Thapar (1973: 68, 199) refers to Aśoka's ‘claim that Jambudvīpa was fit for the gods after the propagation of his policy of Dhamma' and to ‘the Minor Rock Edict at Brahmagiri, referring to the gods in Jambudvīpa.' 7 Exerpted from the entry on ‘Jambudīpa' in Malalasekera (1937-38: 941). 8 Lüders (1963: 170) translates this as ‘The rose-apple tree on Mt. Naḍoda.' 9 Coomaraswamy (Yakṣas, pt. 2, 1931: Pls. 11, 25, 37) reproduces these reliefs but does not identify the plants. Of the coping meander, however (p. 74), he does state that a somewhat later text might suggest that a wish- fulfilling vine emitted from an elephant's mouth as at Bhārhut ‘is here conceived as ‘torn by Airāvata from the Wishing-tree of Paradise'.' 10 Compiled from www.scholarshipsinindia.com/answer/jackfruit.html and Morton (1987: 58-64). 11 Coomaraswamy (Yakṣas, II, 1931: 79): ‘paṇṇa-pacchi or paṇṇa-puṭa (pūrṇa-puṭa),' by which he may have meant to indicate a ripe citron (pacanī) or full parcel (puṭa). Monier-Williams (1899: 631) defined puṭa as ‘a fold, hollow space, slit, concavity [...]; a cloth worn to cover the privaties.' 12 Srinivasan (1997: 6) ‘Vedic man believed that the act of parturition involves the emission of forms somehow already present (? as seeds; ? as potentialities) in the womb.' 13 Huntington (1985: 161) provides a reproduction of the entire surviving front of this lintel (Fig. 8.41), but dates it to the second century CE. 115 Michael W. Meister Bibliography Agrawala, VS. (1965). Mathura Āyagapaṭṭas. Studies in Indian Art. Varanasi: Vishwavidyala Prakashan Coomaraswamy, AK. (1931). Yakṣas Pt. 2. Washington D.C.: Freer Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Cunningham, A. (1879). The Stūpa of Bharhut: a Buddhist Monument Ornamented with Numerous Sculptures Illustrative of Buddhist Legend and History in the Third Century B. C. London: W. H. Allen and Co. Eck, DL. (1996). ‘Rose-Apple Island: Myths that Made Up India', India Magazine, Februay/March Issue. Folkard, R. (1884). Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics: Embracing the Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore of the Plant Kingdom. London: S. Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington. Ghosh, P. (1995). ‘Household Rituals and Women's Domains', In MW. Meister (ed), Cooking for the Gods: The Art of Home Ritual in Bengal. Newark, N.J.: Newark Museum: 21–25. Huntington, SL. (1985). The Art of Ancient India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain. New York: Weatherhill. Joshi, NP. (1966). Mathura Sculptures. Mathura: Archaeological Museum. Khan, F., A. Rehman and MW. Meister. (1998). ‘Temples of the Indus and the Salt Range, A Fresh Probe' (1995-97), The Pakistan Heritage Society Newsletter 1: 2–5. Lüders, H. (ed). (1963). Bharhut Inscriptions (rev. E. Waldschmidt and M. A.Mehendal). Ootacamund: Government Epigraphist for India. Madras District Gazetteers (1931). Statistical Appendix for Trichinopoly District. Madras: Supt., Govt. Press. Malalasekera, GP. (1937-38). Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names, 2 vol. London: J. Murray. Meister, MW. (2000). ‘Discovery of a New Temple on the Indus', Expedition, the Magazine of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 42 (1): 37–46. Meister, MW. (2002). Giving Up and Taking On: The Body in Ritual, Res, Anthropology and Aes- thetics 41: 92–103. Meister, MW. (2007). ‘Image Iconopraxis and Iconoplasty in South Asia', Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 51: 13–32. Meister, MW. (2007-08). ‘When is a Rose Apple Not a Rose?', Journal of Ancient Indian History: JN. Banerjea Memorial Volume 24: 43–51. Mitterwallner, G.V. (1984). ‘Evolution of the Liṅga', In MW. Meister (ed), Discourses on Śiva Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 12-31. Monier-Williams, M. (1899). A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (new ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morton, JF. (1987). Fruits of Warm Climates. Miami: Julia F. Morton. Nugteren, A. (2005). Belief, Bounty, and Beauty: Rituals around Sacred Trees in India. Leiden: Brill. 116 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? Pliny. (1601). The Historie of the World, commonly called the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Se- cundus, (trans. Philemon Holland). London: A. Islip. Rehman, A. (1998). ‘The Discovery of Śiva Maheśvara Figure at Kafirkot North', Lahore Museum Bulletin 9(2) (1996 [1998]): 51–54. Sahni, KC. (1998). The Book of Indian Trees. Mumbai: Oxford University Press. Schulman, DD. (1980). Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in the South Indian Śiva Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Shah, UP. (1955). Studies in Jaina Art. Banaras: Jaina Cultural Research Society: 110–112. Srinivasan, DM. (1997). Many Heads, Arms and Eyes: Origin, Meaning and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art. Leiden: Brill. Thapar, R. (1973). Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, (2nd ed). Delhi: Oxford University Press. The American Druggist (Feb. 1887). New York: William Wood & Co. Wasson, RG. (1968). Soma, Divine Mushroom of Immortality. New York: Harcourt Brace/Jo- vanovich. Wayman, A. (1989). ‘The Mathurā Set of Aṣṭamaṅgala (Eight Auspicious Symbols) in Early and Later Times', In DM. Srinivasan (ed), Mathurā the Cultural Heritage. New Delhi: Manohar Publications: 236-246. Wilson, HH. (ed. and trans.) (1840). The Visnu Purāna: a System of Hindu Mythology and Tradi- tion. London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Wujastyk, D. (2004). ‘Jambudvīpa: Apples or Plums?' In C. Burnett et al (eds), Studies in the His- tory of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree. Leiden: Brill: 287-301. Yule, H. and AC. Burnell. (1903). Hobson-Jobson, (new ed., W. Crooke ed.), London: J. Murray. 117 Michael W. Meister Rose apple (Syzygium jambos), native to Jackfruit (Artocarpus integrifolius), Origin Southeast Asia India; 'believed indigenous to the rain forests of the Western Ghats' Plants are well represented on Bharhut's stupa, c.2nd century BCE mango banana jackfruit Aśoka tree mango mature jackfruit ‘jambu' young jackfruit banyan bodhi tree date palm fan palms [Cunningham] 118 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? Inscribed ‘jabu nadode pavate' = Kanganhalli, Karnataka, 1st century BCE, Buddhas first rose-apple [jambu] tree on Mount meditation under jambu tree [Luders, Bharhut Inscriptions] ‘The jambu tree plays an important role in Hindu Mythology... The legend says that this gigantic tree bears a fruit as large as elephants; ... they burst and pour out juice enough to Jambu or Jack? form the jambu Ruver ... Prof. Dymock describes the fruit ... as follows: ‘The fruit ... is about the size and shape of an olive, of a purple color, and very astringent ... At present there is only very little of the seed obtainable here in New York, but an invoice is shortly expected'. ‘Someone who plants a jambū tree would tend towards the dharma of an ascetic (yati).' Vṛkṣayurveda 12cited by Albertina Nugteren, Belief, Bounty, and Beauty. Rituals around Trees in India, Leiden: Brill, 2006, 81. 119 Michael W. Meister ‘Scene of jambu tree on Mount Nadoda' AIIS Cunningham ‘It thrives in the Himalayan foothills and from sea-level to an altitude of 5,000 ft. in the south'. 120 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? ‘The exterior of the compound fruit is green or yellow when ripe. The interior consists of large edible bulbs of yellow, banana-flavored flesh that encloses a smooth, oval, light-brown seed ... There may be 100 or up to 500 seeds in a single fruit'. ‘Jackfruit is the larg- est tree-borne fruit in the world, reaching 80 pounds in weight and up to 36 inches long and 20 inches in diameter'. 121 Michael W. Meister ‘Male and female flowers are borne in separate flower-heads. Male flower-heads are on new wood among the leaves or above the female. ... The female heads appear on short, stout twigs that emerge from the trunk and large branches, or even from the soil-covered base on very old trees'. ‘jackfruit is the food of sages' Pliny, Naturalis Historia 1st century CE 122 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? This scene is part of Bharhut's wish-fulfilling vine 123 Michael W. Meister Jack fruit jackfruit and lotus in early Buddhism early Mathurā sets of 8 auspicious signs Bharhut Amaravati lotus jack fruit jambu? ‘basket' pot w. jack leaves Bharhut, jambu tree 124 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? lotus gradually replaces jack Mathura, lotus Begram, lotus and jack ‘The Jambu, or Eugenia Jambu. -- The tree here identified was recognized by my native followers. It is apparently a holy Tree, as it has a throne beneath it surrounded by a number of spotted deer'. Alexander Cunningham, The Stupa of Bharhut, 1879, p. 46 Mathura jackfruit ‘jambu' young jackfruit 125 Michael W. Meister JAMBU trees Bharhut Kanganhalli Sanchi Composite winged figures making offerings to tree-shrine and liṅga, Mathura, ca. 1st century BCE fruit growing from roots Mathura, Mathura, maṅgalas Bharhut, jambu liṅga shaft w. ‘leaf basket' 126 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)  Exploring KĀfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose? Mathurā, lintel reconstructed fruit growing from roots Mathurā, liṅga Mathurā, maṅgalas Bharhut, jambu tree shaft w. ‘leaf basket' 127 Michael W. Meister 128 Pakistan Heritage 1 (2009)