Paarijaat Tree, Sultanpur – Historic, Mythological and Majestic

What makes something holy or divine? Some faith worship symbols, others worship the elements. Sometimes there are objects like a holy book and for most of Indians, there are idols and pictures. There is an old saying “Faith can move mountains”. Here in Sultanpur, the Paarijaat Tree is the focus of devotion. While visiting such places in India, you can witness divinity and devotion.

Location of Paarijaat Tree, Sultanpur

To put it in good humour, the local authorities including their tourism department has kept this historically and mythologically important tree well hidden from tourists. Locals do visit it and offer prayers in the evening, but for visitors coming from outside there are no signs and boards whatsoever.

As you move north inside the town of Sultanpur, take a right on the road marked PWD Office Road. Follow this road till you reach a Y junction with a prominent Hanuman Mandir on to your right. At your left will be the tree.

If you go on further on the road to your left, it leads you to Paryawaran Park and further to Sitakund Ghat.

About the Paarijaat tree – the science part

This tree by the looks of it could be Adansonia Digitata or African Baobab. That is the most common tree of the family Adansonia. It is widespread in the African continent.

Let us first see the Adansonia in general. This family of trees are spread mainly across Africa, Australia and Madagascar. Their common features include flowers which open in the evening only to dry up and fall by next morning. As the tree matures their trunks grow to massive sizes. It can also result in multiple trunks, which is in the case of this tree which has two.

Since the flower only opens at night, it is pollinated by bats. The opening of the flower is very fast and can be seen easily. Fruits are large oval and have recently caught the fancy of health conscious people for their nutrition properties.

Out of the eight recognised species of this tree family, six are in Madagascar, one native to Australia and the sixth one Adansonia Digitata is widespread in Africa and has found its way to many places across the world.

African baobab lives very long. Some specimen are measured to be over 2000 years old. The reason why they have such broad trunks is because they retain lot of water which gives them the ability to survive so well in dry and arid regions. Large trees can retain almost 125,000 litres of water. During the dry seasons, these trees shed their leaves to retain water.

The flower of this tree is also known as the flower of sorrow but we shall come to this later.

About the tree – what the locals believe

Here is the part where the story not only gets interesting but fascinating too. Now though the Baobab is not so uncommon in India, there is a lot of religious belief attached to this tree. First fascinating part is that this particular tree has flowers facing inverted down which is why it is also called as the tree of sorrow. The flowers open during the evening and by the time it is morning, it has already done its duty and dies away.

Locals call this tree as Devvriksha. If you pray to the tree with a pure heart, your wish will be granted. People take rounds of the tree while praying. They tied a thread around the tree. You can even find threads tied to the low branches. There are many legends associated with this tree.

Krishna’s wife Satyabhama wanted this tree on earth for her fasting ritual. But this tree was part of the 14 gems which came out from the ocean during sagarmanthan. As it came out, Indra took it to heaven and kept it for himself. Satyabhama wanted the tree but his other wife, Rukhmini also wanted its flowers. First Krishna had to battle Indra to bring the tree to earth and plant it in Dwarka. But to pacify both his wives, he planted the tree in the courtyard of Satyabhama in such a way that the flowers fell in the courtyard of Rukhmini. On a side note, Indra did not easily give up this tree easily. There was an epic battle.

Another version of the story is that Arjun brought the tree to earth for his mother Kunti so that she can perform Shiv Pooja.

The only problem with the story about the tree is that there are two types of trees in India which are called Paarijaat. One is which we have been discussing about all this time. There is another type of tree which has tiny white flowers with bright orange stems. That is also a tree with the same name.

What we all believe

Locals worship the tree and every evening there is a lively atmosphere here of people offering prayers and taking rounds of the tree. Unfortunately some enterprising people have carved their names on the tree. The local authorities have fenced this tree so that no one approaches it directly.

There are lots of effort from the local administration to preserve this pride of Sultanpur. Local activists are also keeping a close watch and petition the authorities whenever the need arises.