THE LAND OF FRAGRANT, PRECIOUS AND HOLY TREES

MY Deepavali prayer each year has been 'May our land be blessed, may our lives be blessed'. And we have good reason to be charmed by the interplay of biodiversity, ecology and religion, by how religion and culture are inseparably married to India through nature.

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

Trees in particular have environmental and economic significance, historical importance, religious and mythological relevance and usage in food, medicine, commerce, art, agriculture and cultivation.

Our sacred trees include wood apple, jackfruit, neem, red silk-cotton, flame of the forest, Alexandrian laurel, coconut palm, banyan, Indian fig, pipal, mahua, champaka, mango, bullet wood (bakul or maulsari), kadamba, coral jasmine, screwpine, Indian gooseberry, Indian gum, sandalwood, ashoka, sal, trumpet flower, jamun, tamarind, arjuna and ber or jujube.

The association of each tree with gods and temples is fascinating and tells us things we may not know, including which of the 27 nakshatra or lunar asterisms in the Indian zodiac that a tree is associated with.

For instance, the wood apple or bilva is linked to the star Chittirai, which is the 14th nakshatra. The wood apple is usually thought of as belonging to Lord Shiva; many of us have enjoyed bel sherbet in season or offered a sprig of three-leaved bel to Lord Shiva on Mondays and Mahashivratri. Moreover, the wood apple is also closely associated with Goddess Lakshmi.

The ber, according to Punjabi legend, is the 'sorrow-removing tree'. The jackfruit is the national tree of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, plus Kerala and Tamil Nadu's state tree.