In the year 2000, Hayashi photographed what might be the most consequential tree in religious history—the Bodhi Tree at Bodh Gaya, descendant of the pipal tree beneath which Prince Siddhartha Gautama sat in meditation circa 528 BCE and achieved enlightenment, transforming into Buddha, the “awakened one” whose realization of the Four Noble Truths created a religious movement that eventually encompassed East, Southeast, and Central Asia across 2,500 years. The format she chose—24 by 69 inches, nearly six feet tall, approaching a 3:1 vertical aspect ratio—represents the most extreme vertical panorama in her Sacred Architectures series. This isn’t arbitrary formalism. When documenting a tree that symbolizes the vertical axis connecting earthly ignorance to enlightened transcendence, when capturing biological lineage that spans 2,500 years of cuttings and transplantings maintaining genetic connection to the original enlightenment moment, horizontal formats fail.

The current tree’s genealogy reads like scripture. Emperor Ashoka’s daughter Sanghamitta took a sapling to Sri Lanka in the 3rd century BCE, establishing the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi—still living, the world’s oldest documented tree with known planting date. When the original Bodh Gaya tree died or was destroyed during centuries of Islamic invasions and Buddhist decline in India, cuttings from the Sri Lankan descendant returned to replant the enlightenment site. What Hayashi photographed represents unbroken biological continuity despite King Shashanka’s 7th-century persecutions, despite 12th-13th century destruction of Buddhist monasteries and universities including nearby Nalanda, despite centuries when the site lay abandoned and overgrown until British colonial archaeologists including Alexander Cunningham identified the ruined Mahabodhi Temple’s significance in 1862 and initiated restoration that transformed Bodh Gaya back into functioning pilgrimage destination.

The vertical composition captures what pilgrims experience: massive trunk rising from ground-level roots, spreading canopy overhead creating shade that 2,500 years ago sheltered a prince’s transformative realization. The tree sits immediately behind the Mahabodhi Temple’s western wall, surrounded by stone vajrasana—the “diamond throne” marking the exact enlightenment spot. The 69-inch height (5.75 feet) creates physical presence matching the tree’s spiritual monumentality. This is natural architecture, biological structure that demonstrates how verticality itself can become theological argument—the upward growth from root to canopy replicating the spiritual journey from suffering to liberation, from samsara to nirvana, from ignorance to awakening.

Contemporary Bodh Gaya draws millions of pilgrims representing Buddhism’s extraordinary diversity. Tibetan Buddhists perform prostrations and circumambulations. Southeast Asian Theravada practitioners sit in extended meditation sessions. East Asian Mahayana pilgrims conduct group ceremonies. Western Buddhist converts study dharma at international centers. When the Dalai Lama visits to teach Kalachakra, 100,000+ attendees gather. All these traditions—despite doctrinal differences, despite 2,500 years of geographic and theological evolution—recognize this tree and this place as Buddhism’s foundational coordinates, the site where enlightenment first manifested in human consciousness under conditions that can be historically located, photographically documented, visited by anyone willing to travel to Bihar state in northeastern India.

UNESCO designated the Mahabodhi Temple complex a World Heritage Site in 2002, two years after Hayashi’s photograph. The recognition acknowledges what her extreme vertical format captures: this is where religious history pivoted, where a prince’s realization beneath a tree created philosophical and contemplative traditions that shaped Asian civilization. The tree continues growing, continues producing leaves and seeds, continues providing shade for pilgrims seeking connection to enlightenment’s original moment. In 2021, the production designer for Benjamin Cleary’s Apple TV+ film Swan Song specifically requested Hayashi’s Bodhi Tree photograph for set decoration. Though only the bottom six inches appeared in the trailer frame, the placement demonstrates posthumous cultural recognition beyond traditional fine art contexts—evidence that her documentation of sacred sites continues resonating through contemporary media, carrying forward visual witness to places where the human encounter with transcendence left architectural and botanical traces substantial enough to photograph nearly six feet tall.