Bodhi Tree Goddess

The Bodhi Tree Goddess is a celestial female deity entrusted with guarding the Bodhi tree. When Prince Siddhartha sat beneath the pipal tree (Ficus religiosa), spread grass as his seat, and overcame Mara’s temptations to attain supreme enlightenment, that tree became venerated as the Bodhi tree—and the divine guardian who watched over it came to be honoured as the Bodhi Tree Goddess. Legend recounts that after the Buddha’s enlightenment, he remained in meditation beneath the tree for seven days, during which the goddess sheltered him with her branches and leaves, shielding him from wind and rain. In East Asian Mahayana Buddhism, she is enshrined as one of the Twenty Devas—celestial protectors—in the main halls of Chinese Buddhist temples, portrayed as a heavenly maiden holding a Bodhi leaf or branch. Her veneration reflects Buddhism’s profound reverence for the very ground of awakening; in traditional Buddhist art, the Bodhi leaf further symbolises the cool, lucid clarity of awakened wisdom and is widely offered and revered.