During the ritual, at the same point in which a new monk would be presented
with his robes, two monks wrapped orange robes around the tree's trunk,
marking its sanctification. A crowd of photographers from local and Bangkok
newspapers and participating NGOs, one anthropologist, and two video camera
crews documented the quick act. The robes stood as a reminder that to harm
or cut the tree-or any of the forest-was an act of demerit. While it was
not unusual to find bodhi trees (the tree under which the Buddha achieved
enlightenment) wrapped with sacred cloth, in those cases the tree was
already seen as holy; the cloth served more to honor the tree than to
sanctify it. The innovation here was that the tree ordained was not already
treated as sacred but was made so through the ritual. The orange robes
symbolized its new status.