Sanjivani (Hinduism)
In Hindu mythology, sanjeevani is a magical herb which has the power to cure any malady. It was believed that medicines prepared from this herb could revive a dead person. The herb is mentioned in the Ramayana when Ravana's son Indrajit (Meghnad) hurls a powerful weapon at Lakshmana. Lakshmana is badly wounded and is nearly killed by Indrajeet. Hanuman was called upon to fetch this herb from the mount Dunagiri (Mahodaya) in the Himalayas or Valley of Flowers. Upon reaching Mount Sumeru, Hanuman was unable to identify the herb and decided to lift the entire mountain and bring it to the battlefield.[1]
While some references in the scientific literature list Selaginella bryopteris as the sanjeevani mentioned in Hindu mythology, a search of ancient texts currently underway in CSIR laboratories has so far not revealed any plant that can be definitively confirmed as sanjeevani. In certain texts it is written that sanjeevani glows in the dark.[2][3]
The herb, believed in Ayurvedic medicine to have medicinal properties, has been searched for unsuccessfully for centuries, up to modern times.[1] The Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in northern India committed an initial 250m rupees (£28m) of state money to search for sanjeevani booti starting in August 2016, focused on the Dronagiri range of the Himalayas near the Chinese border, despite the lack of evidence for its existence. A mountain there is said in the epic Ramayana to be where the magical herb grows. Uttarakhand established a Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (Ayush) in November 2014.[4]
References
- ^ a b D. BALASUBRAMANIAN (11 September 2009). "In search of the Sanjeevani plant of Ramayana". The Hindu. Retrieved 29 July 2016.
- ^ Telegraph India
- ^ In search of Sanjeevani, Current Science, Vol. 97, No. 4, 25 August 2009
- ^ Agence France-Presse (29 July 2016). "Indian state steps up hunt for mythical glow-in-the dark plant". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 July 2016.