Flowers , France In some Buddhist texts, the flowers of the uḍumbara are enclosed within its fruit, as in all figs (see
fig pollination and fig fruit). Because the flower is hidden inside the fruit, a legend developed to explain the absence (and supposed rarity) of the visual flower: in Buddhism, the flower was said to bloom only once every 3000 years and thus came to symbolize events of rare occurrence, such as the advent of a
wheel-turning king or a
Buddha. In early medieval Japan and possibly elsewhere this flower is believed to be capable of saving the lives of those dying from disease. It is mentioned in the
Heian Japanese classic
Utsubo Monogatari. Allusions to this symbolism can be found in texts such as
Theravada Buddhism's
Uraga Sutta (
Sn 1.1, v. 5) and
Mahayana Buddhism's
Lotus Sutra, both described further below. A recent sighting of this flower in 2010 was reported by a Chinese nun, who could distinguish them from assuming it to be
lacewing eggs because they omitted fragrance of sandalwood.
Strangling figs The uḍumbara is one of several trees known as "
strangler figs" due to their often developing as seeds dropped on the branches of a host tree (by animals eating the fig tree's fruit) and, as the branch-borne fig tree grows, it envelops its host tree with its own roots and branches, at times crushing and replacing the host tree. Based on this life cycle, the
Mahārukkha Sutta (
SN 46.39) likens "sensual pleasures" (
kāma) to such fig trees, causing their human hosts to become "bent, twisted, and split" (
obhaggavibhaggo vipatito seti). ==Sanskrit literature==