The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bo tree \Bo" tree`\ (Bot.) The peepul tree; esp., the very ancient tree standing at Anurajahpoora in Ceylon, grown from a slip of the tree under which Gautama is said to have received the heavenly light and so to have become Buddha.
The sacred bo tree of the Buddhists ( Ficus
religiosa), which is planted close to every temple,
and attracts almost as much veneration as the status of
the god himself. . . . It differs from the banyan
( Ficus Indica) by sending down no roots from its
branches.
--Tennent.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1680s, from Sinhalese bo, from Pali bodhi, short for bodhi-taru "bo tree," literally "tree of wisdom or enlightenment" (related to Sanskrit buddhah "awakened;" see bid) + taru "tree."
Wiktionary
n. A fig tree regarded as sacred by Hindus and Buddhists.
WordNet
n. fig tree of India noted for great size and longevity; lacks the prop roots of the banyan; regarded as sacred by Buddhists [syn: pipal, pipal tree, pipul, peepul, sacred fig, Ficus religiosa]
Usage examples of "bo tree".
The hill referred to is the sacred hill of Mihintale, about eight miles due east of the Bo tree.
The Buddha went into solitude and then sat beneath the bo tree, the tree of immortal knowledge, where he received an illumination that has enlightened all of Asia for twenty-five hundred years.
But I don't think that's anything but a dream cooked up by some hysterical monks who didn't understand Buddha's peace under the Bo Tree or for that matter Christ's peace looking down on the heads of his tormentors and forgiving them.
The bodhisatva digging his belly button under the bo tree as opposed to the bolshevik building bombs in his basement?
Enlightenment came to him as he meditated under a bo tree, and he went on to teach that to free oneself from all ties of love and desire was the path to Nirvana (literally, nothingness), meaning the escape from the cycle of endless rebirths.
Mabuse knew, was the last antagonist of Siddhartha, the future Buddha, sent to tempt him as he lay beneath the Bo tree.
He's so damned moralthat he ought to be standing rear up under a Bo Tree.
A slim, dark young man clad only in a loincloth sat under a bo tree.
When would they be able to drift beneath the coral equivalent of a bo tree for any period of time?