Sat Ma­haraj

The ex­pres­sion "Ja­ha­ji bun­dle" has found its way on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form in T&T. It was politi­cian Jack Warn­er who im­mor­talised the phrase in an in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal up­heaval in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). This was a time when the op­po­si­tion pol­i­tics was in dis­ar­ray and Bas­deo Pan­day was fight­ing to main­tain con­trol of his po­lit­i­cal par­ty. Chal­lenge to his lead­er­ship was com­ing from the present Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Win­ston Dook­er­an. But Pan­day then had the sup­port of Jack Warn­er, who was not on­ly fi­nancier of the UNC but at the time ful­ly sup­port­ed Pan­day as the max­i­mum leader. It was at this point that Warn­er made the con­tro­ver­sial at­tack on Dook­er­an, who he ad­vised: "Take your ja­ha­ji bun­dle and go!" This is all now his­to­ry be­cause both Warn­er and Dook­er­an are play­ing on the same po­lit­i­cal team. But the ex­pres­sion "ja­ha­ji bun­dle" is crit­i­cal study if one is to un­der­stand the his­to­ry of T&T and the im­pact of the In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers on the first ar­rival of the SS Fa­tel Roza­ck on May 30, 1845.

The "ja­ha­ji bun­dle" (four cor­ners of a piece of cloth tied to make a car­ri­er) could be de­scribed as a old­en-day suit­case that held all the world­ly pos­ses­sions of an in­den­tured im­mi­grant labour­er who trav­elled the high seas for three months to ar­rive in Trinidad from the port of Howrah in Cal­cut­ta. The veg­e­ta­tion land­scape of Trinidad has been changed be­cause of the seeds and cut­tings of plants which in­den­tured labour­ers brought in their "ja­ha­ji bun­dles." As one trav­els the coun­try­side the pres­ence of these Hin­du sa­cred trees and plants are vis­i­ble every­where. The Ashoka (Sara­ca in­di­ca), Bael (Ae­gle marme­los), Dhatur (Datu­ra stra­mo­ni­um), Kata­har (Ar­to­car­pus het­ero­phyl­lus), Madar (Calotro­pis pro­cera), man­go (Mangifera in­di­ca), Neem (Azadirac­ta in­di­ca), Paan (Piper be­tle), Peepar (Fi­cus re­li­giosa), saf­fron (Cur­cuma lon­ga) and the tul­si (Oci­mum sanc­tum) are on­ly a few of the hun­dreds of flow­er­ing trees and plants that have been brought here by our an­ces­tors. But prob­a­bly the most im­por­tant re­li­gious plant was the tul­si, al­so known as the holy basil or some­times spelt tu­lasi.

It car­ries the botan­i­cal name Oci­mum sanc­tum. This tul­si plant could be found in near­ly every Hin­du home, es­pe­cial­ly around the open al­tar in the yard where the "jhan­di flags" are fly­ing.

In his re­cent pub­li­ca­tion of a book ti­tled Plants of Re­li­gious Sig­nif­i­cance: The Hin­du Per­spec­tive by au­thor Ra­bindranath S Lakhan, a full de­scrip­tion and us­es of this re­li­gious plant is record­ed. He writes: "An erect, an­nu­al, herba­ceous plant which is found wild in the trop­i­cal and sub-trop­i­cal re­gions of the world. The bushy stems can grow up to 40 cm. Flow­er­ing pe­ri­od ap­pears to be from June to Sep­tem­ber and vary in colour from white to red and some­times with a light touch of pur­ple. "It is a prime herb in Ayurvedic med­i­cine. Marked by its strong aro­ma and a strin­gent taste, tul­si is a kind of 'the elixir of life' as it pro­motes longevi­ty. The plant's ex­tracts can be used to pre­vent and cure many ill­ness­es and com­mon ail­ments like com­mon cold, headaches, stom­ach dis­or­ders, in­flam­ma­tion, var­i­ous forms of poi­son­ing and malar­ia."

Ra­bindranath Lakhan then pro­ceeds to give a full de­scrip­tion of the re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance of the tul­si plant: "The tul­si is al­ways as­so­ci­at­ed with pu­ri­ty and high­ly revered and used for all re­li­gious pur­pos­es among Hin­dus. "It is con­sid­ered very aus­pi­cious to have it plant­ed in the front court­yard of many Hin­du house­holds. Its pres­ence sym­bol­is­es the re­li­gious bent of a Hin­du fam­i­ly. A house­hold is con­sid­ered in­com­plete if it doesn't have a tul­si plant in the court­yard. "Many fam­i­lies have the plant in a spe­cial­ly built struc­ture, which has im­ages of deities in­stalled on all four sides, and an al­cove for a small earth­en oil lamp. Some house­holds can even have up to a dozen plants on the ve­ran­da or in the gar­den form­ing a 'tul­si-van' or 'tul­sivrin­da­van'-a minia­ture basil for­est. "Tul­si beads can al­so be seen around the necks of se­ri­ous yo­gis and mys­tics in In­dia, worn to pu­ri­fy the mind, emo­tions and body. Dis­pelling the un­want­ed in­flu­ences of oth­ers, gross and sub­tle, is one of the many ben­e­fits be­stowed by the tul­si plant and hence is wor­shipped by all.

"In prac­ti­cal­ly every tem­ple in In­dia (T&T al­so), no pu­ja can be start­ed with­out a few tul­si leaves. There is al­ways a spe­cial place re­served for this sa­cred plant. The qual­i­ties and amaz­ing pow­ers of this plant are found through­out the old­est writ­ings on Earth, the San­skrit Vedas of an­cient In­dia, where it is stat­ed that sim­ply touch­ing the wood is pu­ri­fy­ing at many lev­els. "Quite a few myths and leg­ends found in the Pu­ranas, one of our an­cient scrip­tures, point to the im­por­tance of tul­si in re­li­gious rit­u­als. "Al­though tul­si is re­gard­ed as fem­i­nine, in no folk­lore is she de­scribed as the con­sort of the Lord. Yet a gar­land sole­ly made of tul­si leaves is the first of­fer­ing to the Lord as part of the dai­ly rit­u­al."

n Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the

sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha