Sometime during the sixth century BC a solitary, wandering ascetic sat to meditate beneath a shady tree, resolving not to rise until he had attained the ultimate knowledge of spiritual enlightenment. Thus began Buddhism, one of the world's great religions and pilgrimage traditions.

This tree is storied to originate from a cutting of the original Bodhi Tree, or tree of Enlightenment in India, under which Buddha meditated.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, near Chiang Mai