Bav­ina Sookdeo

The tul­si plant, al­so re­ferred to as the holy basil, is known in In­dia for its many med­i­c­i­nal pur­pos­es. With its San­skrit­ic mean­ing 'the in­com­pa­ra­ble one', the tra­di­tion of hav­ing a tul­si plant in the home was brought to Trinidad and to­day, in al­most every Hin­du home, this mir­a­cle plant can be found. But ex­act­ly why is the tul­si plant re­ferred to as the holy basil and what are its ben­e­fits? The holy basil, with its pun­gent smell, is used by Hin­dus when per­form­ing pu­ja. Ac­cord­ing to the Web site http://www.or­ganicin­dia.com, "In the Bha­ga­va­ta and Ma­hab­hara­ta (an­cient holy epics and scrip­tures), it is de­scribed how Tul­si, a god­dess and devo­tee of Lord Vish­nu (who rep­re­sents the as­pect of the Supreme Re­al­i­ty that pre­serves and sus­tains the uni­verse), was ul­ti­mate­ly re-in­car­nat­ed as the plant tul­si.

It is said that in or­der to ex­press her de­vo­tion to her beloved Lord, she took this form as a herb which would be of­fered in wor­ship and ser­vice to Him." As a re­sult, the tul­si is used in al­most every rit­u­al in Hin­duism. Var­i­ous pas­sages in the Padma­pu­rana sup­port the use of the tul­si in oth­er as­pects of In­di­an mythol­o­gy. Lord Shi­va, the de­stroy­er and most pow­er­ful god of the Hin­du pan­theon and one of the god­heads in the Hin­du Trin­i­ty, de­scribed the pow­er of tul­si to the rishi Nara­da, the om­nipresent and eter­nal rishi and devo­tee of Lord Vish­nu, say­ing: "Oh, Nara­da! Every house, every vil­lage, every for­est, wher­ev­er the plant of tul­si is grown, there mis­ery, fear, dis­ease and pover­ty do not ex­ist. Tul­si in all as­pects and places is holi­er than holy." For this rea­son, many Hin­du par­ents place a tul­si plant out­side their chil­dren's win­dow when they are study­ing for an ex­am. The tul­si is said to help one study bet­ter. In ad­di­tion, Hin­dus some­times place this at the en­trance of their homes to cleanse and pu­ri­fy the en­vi­ron­ment. It is said that a home with tul­si is well pro­tect­ed against the evil eye. The scent of a tul­si dri­ves away in­sects and snakes. On many oc­ca­sions, the sick is fed tul­si and wa­ter. An old woman in Tabaquite said, "tul­si wa­ter is like life-wa­ter."

Med­i­c­i­nal ben­e­fits

So what oth­er ben­e­fits can some­one gain when tul­si is in­clud­ed in their di­et? The plant is great­ly used in Ayurvedic Med­i­cine. It is said to help calm symp­toms of the com­mon cold and be­cause of its hot na­ture, tul­si helps in bron­chi­tis and res­pi­ra­to­ry tract in­fec­tions. It is an ef­fec­tive treat­ment for women with men­stru­a­tion prob­lems. Ayurvedic Med­i­cine claims that the tul­si con­tains adap­to­gens which are chem­i­cals that help in re­duc­ing and fight­ing stress and stress re­lat­ed prob­lems like high blood pres­sure and heart prob­lems.Thus, it eas­es ten­sion and re­moves the neg­a­tive ef­fects of stress. There are claims that the holy basil al­so has helps with arthri­tis and stom­ach prob­lems. How­ev­er the list does not end here. Ac­cord­ing to oth­er Web sites and books the tul­si is al­so ef­fec­tive in the treat­ment of skin dis­eases and dis­or­ders as­so­ci­at­ed with the eyes, ears and throat. It helps to re­lieve toothache and gets rid of bad breath. For those suf­fer­ing from mi­graine and al­ler­gies, tul­si has proven to be a suc­cess­ful cure. Those who have at­tend­ed pu­jas or any oth­er Hin­du cer­e­mo­ny would have no­ticed a green/pur­plish leaf in the parsad. That is the tul­si. It can be eat­en raw-the most ben­e­fi­cial way to have it-or with milk. Boil­ing or cook­ing the tul­si, is not high­ly rec­om­mend­ed, since it takes away from the nat­ur­al chem­i­cals of the leaves.