The Seba library treats Bo Tree in 7 passages, across 4 authors (including Zimmer, Heinrich, Campbell, Joseph, Jung, C. G.).
the god challenged the right of the Blessed One to be sitting there, beneath the Bo Tree, on the Immovable Spot; whereupon the Future Buddha only touched the earth with the tips of the fingers of his right hand and the earth thundered
Zimmer establishes the Bo Tree as the site of the Buddha’s cosmic confrontation with Māra, where the earth herself bears witness to the Bodhisattva’s right to occupy the axis of enlightenment.
, Philosophies of India, 1951thesis
One day he sat beneath a tree, contemplating the easter
Campbell situates the hero-task of the Buddha — culminating in his sitting beneath the tree — as a paradigmatic instance of the monomythic ordeal, in which years of renunciation, meditation, and austerity lead to the threshold of illumination.
, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015thesis
Like all archetypal symbols, the symbol of the tree has undergone a development of meaning in the course of the centuries. It is far removed from the original meaning of the shamanistic tree, even though certain basic features prove to be unalterable.
Jung provides the archetypal framework within which the Bo Tree participates: as one instance of the universal philosophical tree symbolizing the self and the individuation process across cultures and epochs.
, Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907supporting
the tree symbolizes human life and development and the inner process of becoming conscious. One could say that it symbolizes in the psyche that something which grows and develops undisturbed within us, irrespective of what the ego does; it is the urge toward individuation
Von Franz articulates the depth-psychological ground that makes the Bo Tree mythologically potent: the tree as symbol of the individuation drive that unfolds independently of ego-consciousness.
, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974supporting
the pictorial tradition of Indian myth and symbol first breaks for us, like a torrent, into the light of day
Zimmer situates the iconographic tradition surrounding Buddhist sacred sites — including Bodhgayā where the Bo Tree stands — within the earliest surviving Indian religious art, linking tree-veneration to the deep substrate of Indian spiritual imagery.
, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, 1946supporting
the tree is also a mother. You know that in Saxony, even now, it is said that beautiful girls grow under the leaves of trees, and I could show you pictures showing that children come from trees
Von Franz’s cross-cultural survey of tree symbolism as mother, death-mother, and world-axis provides comparative depth for understanding the Bo Tree’s mythological resonance beyond the strictly Buddhist context.
, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales, 1970aside
the tree can be interpreted as the Anthropos or self. This interpretation is particularly obvious in the symbolism of the ‘Scriptum Alberti’ and is confirmed by the fantasy material expressed in our pictures.
Jung’s identification of the tree with the Anthropos and the self furnishes the theoretical matrix linking the Bo Tree’s mythological function to the individuation symbolism at the heart of analytical psychology.
, Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907aside