The forest as the first temple.

Vanaspati — the lord of trees

The Vedic hymns speak of vanaspati, the lord of trees, with reverence rather than possession. The forest was not a resource to be extracted; it was a presence to be honoured. The earliest temples were forests — quiet groves marked off from the village for the gods who lived among the leaves.

Devavana — the god-forest

Across India, even today, one finds devavanas: small forests under the protection of a local deity. To cut a branch from a devavana is taboo. Modern ecologists have begun to study these groves with quiet astonishment — they are often biodiversity hotspots, conserving species that have disappeared elsewhere. They are, in short, working temples of biology.

The great five trees

Hindu tradition recognises a panel of trees of particular sanctity. Different texts list different combinations, but the Pancavriksha — the “five trees” — most often include peepal, banyan, ashoka, bel and a fifth that varies by region. In the Ayodhya tradition, that fifth is the Kovidar.

Kovidar’s place

Kovidar is not the mightiest of these trees; it is not the most photographed. But for the dynasty of Raghu, for the city of Ayodhya, for the softer register of Hindu memory — the moments when dharma flowers before reason, before argument — it is the quiet emblem.

Why this matters now

India is urbanising fast. Villages with sacred groves are being absorbed into cities. To remember the trees of the Ramayana, and to plant them again in our courtyards, is not nostalgia — it is a small, careful act of restoration. The tree, in turn, restores us.