If you visit a flower market in Mumbai, you will usually not see the coral jasmine. It flowers at night, and when day breaks, all the flowers fall, leaving a beautiful carpet of flowers on the ground. It is a fragile flower, that fades quickly, and doesn't do well when transported to markets.
In my mother's apartment there is a coral jasmine plant; and every morning, the night watchman gathers up the flowers and gives them to my mother. Some of them go into the kitchen temple, but the others are used like this, as a beautiful carpet for her plants.
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| Coral jasmine, offered to the Tulsi, and to other plants |
This jasmine is offered to gods, even after it has fallen to the ground. In Tamil, it is called
kanaka malli, where
kanaka means coral, and
malli is jasmine. In Hindi, the coral jasmine is called
harsingar, or the adornment of God. It is the state flower of West Bengal. In Bengali it is called
sheuli.
This flower is also identified as
parijat, a legendary flowering tree that is mentioned in the Puranas. As is common in Indian legends, there are multiple candidates claiming to be
parijat :) In Tamilnadu, the
parijat of legend is a much larger, all-white flower, with a very intense fragrance.
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| Krishna Uprooting the Parijata Tree, folio from a Bhagavata Purana manuscript (text in Sanskrit), Delhi region or Rajasthan, India, artist unknown,1525–50; opaque watercolor and ink on paper. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. |
2 comments:
Hello Deepa , When I was on holiday in Paris some years ago I was staying in "little India" . The food was great and so cheap. We bought strings of highly scented flowers which were to be worn around the neck . I am wondering if they might have been this jasmine . The scent was strong and lasted over dayss even as the flowers wilted.
Where is this beautiful flowering plant in Mumbai. I have been looking
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