Plant Myths And Traditions In India

Third revised and enlarged edition, incl. 28 b&w ills. - Trees and plants play an important part in the myths and customs of India. Many are considered holy, often for reasons that are lost in the mists of antiquity - they are associated with gods, planets, months, etc...

Annotation. Trees and plants have long been held sacred to communities the world over. In India they feature in our myths, epics, rituals, worship, and daily life. There is the pipal, under which the Buddha editated; the banyan, in whose branches hide spirits; the ashoka, in a grove of which Sita sheltered; and the tulsi, without which no Hindu house is considered complete. Before temples were constructed, trees were open-air shrines and many were symbolic of the Buddha himself.Sacred Plants of India lays out the sociocultural roots of the plants found in the Indian subcontinent, while asserting their ecological importance. Informative, thought-provoking, and meticulously researched, this book draws on mythology, botany, and the ancient religious traditions of India to assemble a fascinating account of India's flora.

The subject of this book is ritual behaviour, in particular of groups with a distinctive religious, ethnic or other identity which use rituals to pursue strategic ends ad intra and ad extra. Five essays offer theoretical perspectives on ritual in plural and pluralist societies, on similarity and demarcation, on the negative case of the Australian Aboriginals, on Brazilian religious pluralism, and on Ghanaian churches in the Netherlands. Three essays describe the ritualization of the encounter, or confrontation, between religions in India (between Buddhists and Hindus, and between Hindus and Muslims), and in Yemen between Muslims and Jews. Four essays study the responses to internal religious plurality, in early Israel, on Java, in Indonesia, and in Spain and North Africa. One essay explores responses to external religious plurality. In the epilogue, the social nature of pluralism and identity is highlighted.

This study examines plants associated with ritual purity, fertility, prosperity and life, and plants associated with ritual impurity, sickness, ill fate and death. It provides detail from history, ethnography, religious studies, classics, folklore, ethnobotany and medicine.

Plants personify the divine- The Rig Veda (X.97) Trees and plants have long been held sacred to communities the world over. In India, we have a whole variety of flora that feature in our myths, our epics, our rituals, our worship and our daily life. There is the pipal, under which the Buddha meditated on the path to enlightenment; the banyan, in whose branches hide spirits; the ashoka, in a grove of which Sita sheltered when she was Ravana's prisoner; the tulsi, without which no Hindu house is considered complete; the bilva, with whose leaves it is possible to inadvertently worship Shiva. Before temples were constructed, trees were open-air shrines sheltering the deity, and many were symbolic of the Buddha himself. Sacred Plants of India systematically lays out the sociocultural roots of the various plants found in the Indian subcontinent, while also asserting their ecological importance to our survival. Informative, thought-provoking and meticulously researched, this book draws on mythology and botany and the ancient religious traditions of India to assemble a detailed and fascinating account of India's flora.