To which religion plants belong

We wake up in the morning and look around us to view something green , a plant , a tree even if we do not find one a painting of greenery or a photograph of a scenery and anything similar to them.

I still remember when I was a little kid my ammi (mother) as soon as we ( my brother and my sister) would wake up she insisted us to open our eyes looking at the coconut trees which were just a few steps from our entrance door .

My  chan khala (aunt)  who also resided in the area , had planted a coconut tree  in front of the house just at the entrance . Even our neighbor  Bhangya aunti  who was  from the different community (they were Iyengars from the Hindu religion )  had planted a coconut tree at the entrance of the house.

The coconut tree at Bhagya aunti’s house was worshiped every week but my aunt never offered prayers but instead she would never allow anyone to throw waste or even spiting at the plant bed  . Both of them maintained the same view Bhagya aunti protected this coconut tree defining it as  Kalpavriksha  and my  chan khala (Aunt) too would believe it as tree whose every part is beneficial to us in other words it too meant kalpavirksah .

I always wondered why were  Peepal and Neem tree planted near the temples or in the campus of the temple and the Hindu religious religion right from my class VI ,We had lessons  on religion thought to us in social studies , then  once when we visited to my Dadasab ( Paternal grandfather)  village I happened to visit the mosque , overwhelmed with a curiosity  I tried to get an explanation to this observation of mine  from my Dadasab ( Paternal grandfather) who was a mouzan (care taker of the mosque) in a small town , ” Dadasab (Grandpa) in our school my teacher thought me the Hindu worship place is a temple , the Muslim worship place is mosque and the Christian worship place is a church , and she further said the Hindu trees are Peepal and neem tree , the Christian Tree is a Christmas tree and there are no trees in mosques .” why dadasab (granpa) we do not have any tress?  

As he plunged into a deep  silence for some time  and looked up in the sky I had my quick thoughts  arrowing  at to him “dadasaab is it because Islam was born in the desert or is it because we can’t grow palm trees here “  , then he smiled at me and said because  my dear little one ALLAH  has given us all the tress and there is no favoritism  in ALLAH’s court .This was an convincing answer to me at that time of a kid .

All these thoughts had been in disguise for a long period until I landed up with a project on simple drugs from traditional practices in the rural areas of southern India  for a conference at Coimbatore as  guest speaker which was when I started looking for good images of Calotropis plant this  is called as aak or madar in Hindi language  and karna kundal in Kannada language . I found both the varieties at one place and this was  at a village called Tondebavi  (belongs to Kolar district of Karnataka) .

A few women of the village were worshiping the plant    (the worshiped plant in the picture) I stopped by and started taking the photograph, and with my enthusiasm I tried to pluck the flowers ,an old lady may be around late 70′s comes closer to me and stops me getting near the plant saying ” Ei turukru illi yenu madutedare, gida hatera bandare teriga pooja madadikke hatu sare toil beku “ ( What are these turks (turukru) doing here , if they come near this plant then we need to wash this 10 time for its next ritual).

My husband who had accompanied me just dragged me and I broke into a stand still posture with my eyes wide open and was just staring at the old lady. When an outsider cannot take a photograph of the plant will she allow any part of it used by other community in the village for use of it as a medicine?

I tried to speak to her she turned her back towards me and started walking off , could anyone guess she was my husband’s friend Sudhir’s grandmother and he had invited us to his house for a lunch after our marriage .Sudhir felt very embarrassed by her act and to add on more she was keeping on calling us turukru (turks) , just knew the meaning of turukru as turks at that time .

He had organized a small workshop in his courtyard in the evening for a health education to the girls of the village. The girls of both the communities, Hindus and Muslims between the age group 10-15 yrs were invited but to my first surprise, there were just 20 girls who turned up and 80% of them Hindus and 20 % of Muslims and these 20% of them were just 10yrs old.

It was Sudhir’s wife who had gathered this group, reluctantly asked her what could be the reason for only 20% of Muslim girls. Her immediate answer – “as you are a doctor , they think you are going to guide them on family planning as there was doctor last week who spoke to women on family planning in our village  so most of them do not want their daughters to know about it “. With this my throat got dry and was thinking how an education on menstrual cycle could be an education on family planning!

I moved forward with the workshop and started teaching them to manage menstrual cramps with home remedies, exercises do’s and don’ts during the cycle.

I demonstrated them the recepies like juices which could be prepared by them which could be easily available to them and they were   prepared from wood apple, lemon, tomato and hibiscus flowers, all went on well until a gap of silence occurred at the preparation of juice from hibiscus flower the girls were whispering with each other and when I asked them to share their whispers one of them was bold enough to speak out, she shared the fact that they were not allowed to touch the flower as it was auspicious , in this case how can  they prepare the juice ? .

This wasn’t complete over there; the Muslim girls shared that they are not allowed to go near these plants , hibiscus, calotropis , tulasi  anywhere in the village and  neem at the campus of the temple . They were regarded as the ‘PLANT GODS ‘ of the Hindus and they were worshiped . The capturing thoughts with the religion was mainly for the medicinal use of the plants  but why are they deprived of being used by the other communities . Is this a cultural bias or a traditional bias or a religion?

When I happen to visit an  ayurvedic centre in Bangalore, as a  consultant  for  study tour of  officers from TCM (traditional and complementary medicine) department , of ministry of Malaysia , we saw a these trees at campus and the a goddess (Bhu mata) in mid of it  the age old quest in my heart got fumigated and with all my patience I enquired why is this in every temple why not only peepal tree and why not only neem tree to the resident doctor who was guiding us , the doctor with a big smile replied ” oh! You do not know we perform the marriage of peepal tree and neem tree as bhu mate to be its witness, so and hence these are symbol of our culture ” .

Why is it in the rural areas or even in the urban areas the mosque authorities fear to plant a peepal or a neem tree near the vicinity of the Muslim residential area , is it because of the belief carried from ages as these are to be only planted in the campus of the temples , were they originated with any religion on this earth, I find it most difficult when I hold workshops in rural areas and discuss them these formulations / recepies  as religion biased .

These are a few of them shared; there are a number of these kind of  plants herbs being used by different communities and each community is making a cocoon around it, we need hatch out beautiful butterflies from these cocoons before they are woven into their respective religious shreds so that they could be used by one and all, whether they are from any race or religion , around the globe .

Photo: Neem Plant by Yeoh_ts