Page:The Tale of the Tulsi Plant and Other Stories.djvu/16

 THE TALE OF THE TULSI PLANT.

I DARE say that it has often happened that a young Englishman riding past an Indian’s house has seen a small plant growing in a pot just opposite the door and has enquired its name. The answer has been that it is the Tulsi, a plant sacred to Vishnu. If incurious, this answer has satisfied the questioner. If curious to probe mi o the secrets of the world around him, he will have returned home and searched for the word Tulsi in Molesworth’s dictionary. Therein it is written that the Tulsi is the Basil plant or “Ocymum Sanctum.” If Basil be traced in the leaves of Webster, the searcher will learn that Basil is derived from the Greek word basilikon, meaning kingly, and that the Basil plant has in France been styled la plan1e royale and in Germany the könig’s kraut. The next stage will he a pursuit for the Greek words basilikon clendron in the pages of Liddell and Scott; but here the pursuit will be vain, for the term was unknown in classical Greece. As it is not unlikely that no further clue will be forthcoming, I have ventured to write the present article in the hope of throwing some light on the subject.

By the kindness of a friend* I have been supplied with two extracts which show that in Italy and in Greece the Basil plant was credited with certain