Compiled by London swaminathan

Date: 28 December 2016

Time uploaded in London:-  15-42

Post No.3492

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STORY OF THE TULSI PLANT (OCIMUM SANCTUM)

This plant is sacred to Vishnu. Its leaves are supposed to possess medicinal properties. Orthodox Hindus plant it in their gardens and and compounds and worship it.

A story is told how even Rukmini, the chief wife of Krishna, and an incarnation of Lakshmi, gave pride of place to Tulsi.

Narada, one day, visited Satyabhama, one of the wives of Krishna, and this lady confided to the sage that she wished to obtain Krishna as her husband in all her future births, and asked him how this could be done.

Narada said that the best way of ensuring this was to give her husband to Narada himself, as anyting given to a Brahmin could be depended upon to return to the giver in future births in manifold forms. Carried away by Narada’s eloquence Satyabhama gave her husband to Narada and the latter asked Krishna to work as his page, gave him his Vina to carry and proceeded towards the celestial regions.

The other wives of Krishna, on coming to know of this rushed to the sage and implored him to return their husband. They reviled Satyalhara for her presumption, and this lady repented on her rash act and requested Narada to return Krishna to her.

Narada now disclosed to them that it was a sin to receive anything in charity from a Brahmin and told them they could buy their husband from him if they cared to. He was asked to name his price and he demanded Krishna’s weight in gold. The ladies piled up their ornaments in one pan of the scales, but when Krishna sat in the other this one came in a thud. Now they sent for Rukmini who was not in the crowd. She came with a leaf of the Tulsi plant, asked the ladies to remove the ornaments from the pan and, when this was done, placed the leaf in the pan when Krishna was lifted upwards in the other. Rukmini now told all the ladies that Tulsi was more beloved to Krishna than any of them.

On the eleventh day of Kartik (october-November) a ceremony is performed in honour of Tulsi and her marriage with Vishnu. “This ceremony opens the marriage season among high caste Hindus. It is said that he who performs this marriage ceremony assuming that Tulsi is his daughter, gets all the benefits of Kayadandan, (giving away a daughter in marriage),a very meritorious act.

Source:Epics, Myths and Legends of India by P Thomas, Year 1961

–Subham–