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From Portuguesebaniano, from Arabicبَنِيَان(baniyān), from Gujaratiવાણિયો(vāṇiyo, “merchant”), from Sanskritवाणिज(vāṇijá), from earlier वणिज्(vaṇíj, “merchant, trader”). The name appears to have been first bestowed popularly on a famous tree of this species growing near Bandar Abbas, under which the Bannians or Hindu traders settled at that port, had built a little pagoda.[1]Doublet of bunnia.
1914, Teresa Frances, William Rose Benét, The East I Know, translation of original by Paul Claudel, page 33:
We climb and then descend; we pass by the great banyan which, like Atlas, settling himself powerfully on his contorted haunches, seems awaiting with knee and shoulder the burden of the sky.
^ Yule, Henry, Sir. Hobson-Jobson (1903) A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive., London: J. Murray
Banyan on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 
Banyan in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
