INDIAN tLOWf.RS^ 



By Surgeon-Major K. R. Kiktikar, I.M.S., 

 Fellow of the LiniifEan Society. 



[Extracts from a Lecture tJeUvered at the Sassoon's Mechanics'' lusHittie, Bomhai/, 



on 28//;. March, 1892.) 



To lis (Hindus) tlie uses of tlovvers are manifold. Their existence is wedded 

 with our ow}i. Though no idolator ixtyself now for the past quarter of a century, 

 there was a time in my early life ■vvhen following the custom of my forefathers 

 I worshipped the gods and goddesses, the Lares and Penates of my paternal home, 

 with a profusion of flowers that the surrounding garden or nearest flower-market 

 could aff'ord, before I began my daily duties. To the Ganpati, the god of Wisdom, 

 I offered the scarlet Jaswau {Hibiscus Rosa- Sinensis); to Shiva I offered the cream- 

 wliite Ktinchan {Bauhinia Variegata) and the purple Dhatura {Dhatura fastuosa) ; 

 to Yishnu I offered the Parijatak [Nyctanthes Arbor-tristis) and racemes of Tulsi 

 {Ocymum Sanctum) ; to Maruti, garlands of Rui [Calotropis gie/antea) ^ and you 

 my Hindu hearers who still choose to follow the faith and rituals of our fathers 

 are to this day doing the same. You are not wrong in thus foil (j wing your faith 

 and ofl"ering these pure unsullied gifts of Nature to your and to Nature's God, if 

 you only remember that they ought to stir in you your noblest passions and lead 

 you on to appreciate what is absolutely pure and unsullied in Nature. To follow 

 up these floral offerings to the Hindu gods and goddesses, I may mention that 

 in the Navratra holidays the shrines of Laksbrai, Amba, or Durga are adorned 

 with lotuses of all colours and the flowers of Gnljafri [Tagetes erecta). When small- 

 po.x is raging in a Hindu house, we entwine the cradle of the baby stricken with 

 this foul disease with wreathes of Jasmin and leaves of Nim [AsarcUrachta Indica), 

 and propitiate the goddess Shitala, who is supposed to restore the baby to health, 

 with all the choicest flowers of the season. On all joyful occasions and on occasions 

 of special thankfulness to our gods, we distribute flowers and sugar to our near 

 and dear lady friends and relations. When our dear ones depart this life, the 

 Jasmin interspersed with the leaves and racemes of Tulsi deck their mortal remains 

 as they are borne to the funeral pyre, their last dissolving place. No Hindu lady 

 that dies during the life-time of her husband leaves her home in death without 

 having her hair decked with the choicest flowers of the season as though they 

 were symbolical of that purity in which she leaves this world in jjrospect of joining 

 the regions above where what constitutes the impure is utterly unknown. Our 

 virgin bride too comes in for a full share of these serene emblems of purity. The 

 very agreeable custom of our ladies wearing fresh flowers in their hair is well 

 known to those who know our domestic habits. Every married lady considers it 

 ber privilege and her prerogative to wear the flowers that the varying seasons 

 of the year produce. In the days of her widowhood she discards this pleasure, 

 among the many things she denies herself or has to deny herself in obedience to 

 the national custom or on the assumption of the austerities of ber altered life and 

 solitary existence. The husband gone, there is nobody to wear the flowers for, 



