Fruit Of The Banyan Tree
A Novel
 By Thomas J. Smith
(c) 2006
"Fetch me a fruit of the banyan tree."
"Here is one, sir."
"Break it."
"I have broken it, sir."
"What do you see?"
"Very tiny seeds, sir."
"Break one."
"I have broken it, sir."
"Now what do you see?"
"Nothing, sir."
"My son," the father said, "what you do not perceive is the essence, and within that essence the mighty banyan tree exists.  Believe me, my son, within that essence is the self of all that lives.  That is the True, that is the Self.  And you are that Self ..."

                                                                          The Chandogya Upanishands [VI.13.,1-3]
                                                                          c. 400 B.C.
Taken from the ancient Hindu religious scriptures known as the Upanishands, the passage quoted above serves as the novel's epigram.  Here, using just a small piece of exotic fruit and the tiny seeds it contains as a metaphor for all of life, a father teaches his inquisitive young son about the subtle connectedness of all things, and about the great significance that small, seemingly unimportant things can have in time.  The novel takes both its literal and its symbolic foundation from the thoughts expressed in these few lines.

The literal foundation comes from the fact that a banyan tree does indeed play a significant role in the story.  A prominent object of civic pride in the town in which the novel takes place, the tree's unique and misunderstood history slowly reveals itself as the story unfolds, and that history ultimately serves as a poignant foil to the events through which the story's characters move in the present day.

As a symbolic object, the tree represents life, growth, and the inscrutable ways of nature.  It's history parallels the history of the characters; its very presence in the heart of a town far removed from its native lands speaks to the strong, uncontrollable, and oftentimes unpredictable ways in which living things insist on following their own ways, in spite of the efforts of men to claim dominion over them.  And whether the living thing in question presents itself in the form of a tree or in the form of a man's own child, the belief that anyone may control the "essence" of that free and independent "self" will eventually be shown to be nothing more than an illusion.
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