Heritage Trees of Hazaribagh. Jharkhand

Subhashis Das

Hazaribagh has several trees that are old and enormous in size. Spread to a large area of land, many such giant banyans and peepals were felled in the process of the construction of the 4-lane highway. But thankfully several such giants remain. The peepals and the banyans inside the city and the hinterlands of Hazaribagh can be seen spread to a large area.

Please take a dekho of the photographs of a few such trees of Hazaribagh (although there are certainly more) that can easily be ordained with the heritage status:

Plate 1. The iconic Maulshree tree in the campus of the Mazaar/Peer Baba shrine.

   The thick bushy tree in the campus of the Mazaar/Peer Baba shrine in the Court Road has many myths surrounding it. 

    One legend is that centuries ago a fakir or a sufi saint arrived here beside the then Old Benares Road (the area must have been quite wooded in those days). Here he began practicing his faith and singing to his heart's glory, as all sufis do. He was known as Daata Baba or the sage who "gives".

   To clean his teeth in the mornings he would use twigs of branches or datun/datwan  (there seems to be a relationship between his designation of "data baba" and the datun/datwuns). The myth goes that the baba threw the chewed datwans at one particular place. And it was here after his demise did this tree grow (Plate 1).

    As no one had seen such a tree earlier they held that it had grown magically from the fakir's datwan dump after his death; it was therefore a  magical tree. Many believed that this "datwan" tree is very rare but one such tree has been spotted on the G.T.Road in Bihar. 

   However this is quite a well known tree called the Molshree or the Bakul Tree (Mimusopos elegni) (Plate 1). It is a dense evergreen tree and can be seen planted mostly beside highways and roads as its thick bushy leaves provides a good shade to wary travellers. The tree blooms into small fragrant white flowers. Molshree is sacred to the Hindus and is associated with vastu and being a medicinal plant it has much use even in ayurveda.  

Plate 2. Saal trees (shorea robusta) are indeed heritage trees

Plate 3. The iconic Jamun (Syzygium cumini) tree of the Police Line.

Jamun trees also known as the Malabar or the Java Plum is a long lived tropical evergreen tree. This tree is receding in numbers as people are felling them for its timber as this wood does not rot in water.

This jamun tree of the Police Line is a favourite of the youngsters who love the fruit that ripes during the summer and the monsoon months. The children love the jamun for its sweet taste and also for the purple colour that carpets their tongue.

The fruit also invites numerous birds and squirrels.

Plate 4. The famous large imli or teetaria or the tamarind tree (tamarindus indica) of the Majar road next to the Data Majar. 

Plate 5. The huge banyan is located in Dipugarha. 

 On the right side beside the road to the Kanary Hill stands a large Babyan Tree (Plate 5) with much pride. The red strings wrapped around the girth of the tree gives evidence of the tree being worshipped by the womenfolk during Vat-Savitri. The tree was once planned to be felled by the land mafia so that the land could be sold off. But public awareness protected this tree.

The large banyan tree spread to a very large area seems to be quite old.

                                                           Credit: Zamir Arif

This very large and ancient Banyan Tree is one tree.

  This enormous banyan tree is actually a sacred grove known as Daroga Gosaiwn. Such groves are also known as Mandars. This apparently is a single tree that has shot so many roots and has spread to such a large area which suggests that this tree is indeed quite ancient. 

    The Daroga Gosawin banyan has a myth that is quite popular among the villagers. The deity of the Mandar is believed to be a very powerful oracle granting wishesd to all its devotees. 

     Devotees come from far and wide for having their wishes granted. If anyone distrusts the spirit of the tree who is an old baba is bound to suffer hardships and bad luck. It so happened that one Britisher distrusted the deity of the tree holding it as superstitious and he fired many several bullets at the tree. The villagers speak that nothing happened to the tree but the Britisher died a cruel death.