Click the photo to see larger view
Nature has its ways of bringing the Lord to us. Simple forms that bloom into flowers and seem to depict one of the most sacred forms known to us. The "Nagalingapoo" or Naga Linga flower is one such flower that brings the beauty of the Lord right before us.
They say the beauty of the Lord lies within a lotus, a thousand petaled lotus. Blooming out, holding the Linga within itself, sheltered deep inside housed by the flower that seems to cover it like a serpent, a multi hooded serpent.
Glowing with beauty
a flower speaks out
in the middle of the forest
God's own creation
Small wonders blooming around
singing away in the sunlight
a creation so unique
passes away unnoticed
A gigantic tree
with deeper roots
holding out delicate flowers
for the world to see
Behold this beauty
shining pink
within a pond of fragrance
filling the air
Joyous birds chirp
amidst her branches
holding out in full bloom
telling the world
The Lord appears
in various forms
some so simple
just don't look beyond
The Lord resides
in the hearts of all
displaying His beauty
through a simple flower!
The serpent king guards
in graceful curve
the very Lord Himself
Enclosed in a universal whole
Five petals hold
Love for the Lord
potent seeds with divine sound
Forever singing His praise.
Photo courtesy for the first picture: Yan Manarsar (yan)
33 comments:
HI Kavitha, A beautiful image of the Formless Creator!
On the other hand, a red coloured petal appears like Ma Kali's tongue! However, the five of them in the flower perhaps reflect the 'Panchabhootas' that are always found together in any physical form - like Pandavas who had Yudhister, the 'Dharmaraja', as the eldest among them (as the model of earth that is Shiva)!
And, Lord Rama in Tretayuga (in the words of Sant Tulsidas) told younger brother Lakshamana that it is fear that generates in humans the feeling of love, and therefore requested him to hand Him over the arrow [indicating Lakshamana to be the model of Shiva (of Satyuga), and thus like Him to open His third eye to dry up the sea for passage to Ravana's golden Lanka!]!
And, Krishna was perhaps therefore called 'natkhat' or mischievous by the ancient 'wise' Hindus!
Cannot see the picture . please could you check?
Thanks
Hi Gitanjali,
There are two pictures on the blog post and one that can be accessed from a link.
Please let me know which pictures you cannot see. Are you behind a firewall or something...
Do let me know since i can access all three pictures.
Regds
Kavitha
Kavitha,Same problem here in accessing both the pictures
I hope everyone has been able to enjoy by now the beautiful flower whose image has been presented in the post by Ms Kavitha.
Now, a Hindu (by thought) in the Kaliyuga would accept that during this era naturally a maximum and minimum possible human efficiency varies between 25% & 0% of the ultimate potential in Satyuga. And that’s why the ‘scientists’ find even the most intelligent man is able to utilize only a negligible fraction of the available grey cells in the ‘present’ in human brain.
One would also therefore be conscious of Yogiraj Krishna of Dwaperyuga (of 50% to 25% efficiency range), as the relatively inferior reincarnation/ model of the perfect Formless Creator, Vishnu, represented in physical form by ‘Sudershan-chakra-dhari’ Vishnu or planet Saturn of beautiful rings/ Shiva or beautiful planet Earth with its grand and varied environment… He/ she would perhaps therefore be in a better position to 'enter the mind of the Creator’, reflected through the ‘wise’ ancient Yogis as they believably saw communication in ‘Nature’ with reference to beautifully varied flowers as one of the component of a system, called trees, also as essence of the universe just as the solar/ human system also was visualized as such, i.e., all as ‘images’ of the Formless Creator/ the root cause of the beautiful Creation. However, the apparent opposites experienced by humans were/ are perhaps unavoidable once a form is acquired by Him – as reflected in the man-made coins, its ‘two opposite sides’. And therefore Buddha (associated with Bodhi Tree of Banyan Tree's family and its well known characteristic of roots coming down from branches, like return water of a fountain) adviced common man to tread the ‘middle path’, i.e., the blank side of the coin.
The above-cited phenomenon also gets reflected in the (dead!) logs that float in the middle of the rivers, relatively peacefully and reach their goal, the sea, compared to the ones that float near the banks and get stuck up somewhere on their way, or are made to revolve in the eddies!
And, Krishna, similarly advised ‘surrender in Him’ (as Arjuna ultimately did when realization dawned on him about humans as mere instruments - like 'dead' logs in the above example), for the Yogis eventually came to realize the universe as illusory, like human dreams, a dream of Nadbindu the Supreme soul or 'Paramatma' who believably resides within all apparent physical forms also as witness to the performance of each of its Creation! Maybe, one could also be conscious how He (Bhootnath) could be watching the performance of players through different physical senses of His Own 'images' (ordinary 'bhootas') that are glued to the various means of communication, viz. TVs/radios/ newspapers/ and so on!
Great post! It reminded me of my childhood days when we used to pluck flowers from the Nagalinga tree in our garden. Well, i also admire the beauty of nature of the flower. Since I also studied botany, i wish to mention that the botanical name of the tree is Couropita guinensis belonging to the family Lecithydaceae.
Forgive me for giving irrelevant information, just can't resist it ;-)
Thanks, Aswin, for sharing the information I was thinking of asking my elder brother who was a student of Botany and so also was one of my daughters too!
I would like to indicate perhaps the hand of the believable mischievous 'Krishna' reflected in a news item I happened to read in detail just an hour ago.
Talking of games or 'leela' that is drama, in the stories related with ‘Krishna’ in Dwaperyuga, there is one incident that is popularly retold about young boys in Gokul once reportedly playing with a ball on the bank of the River Yamuna. During the game, the ball unexpectedly fell into the river. The boys were scared because of the known presence of a serpent named Kaliya in the Yamuna. To their shock, they saw young Krishna immediately thereafter jump into the river to retrieve the ball, and thus his friends were afraid for his life. However, to their surprise soon Krishna was seen dancing over the hood of the thousand headed serpent! And to the relief of all, he managed to kill the demon!
And the Hindu Mythology indicate our earth resting over the hood of celestial serpent Ananta!
With the above in mind, I was shocked to read tragic news emanating from Kaushambi about nine bodies of boys aged between 8 & 18 fished out from the Yamuna while efforts were being made to trace two others. It appears that the boys were part of a marriage party that had come from Baraithi village in U.P. A police spokesman in Lucknow reportedly said that their football fell into the river and when one of them attempted to retrieve it, he accidentally fell into the river. The others then jumped one after another to save their friend and all of them were swept away by the strong river currents.
It was during my schooldays that in a science exhibition, among many other exhibits, I first saw with awe a light table-tennis ball dancing in the middle, on top of a jet of water that issued forth forcefully from the nozzle of a fountain and rose to some height to fall back again in all directions.
This childhood observation helped me, only after having known the human brain to be an analogous computer, reading the Gita and deciding to ‘surrender in Krishna’ as advised therein, to visualize the significance of the word ‘shahastradhara’ that is ‘thousand streams’ used by the Yogis in relation with human form.
The phenomenon is related with activation of ‘kundalini’, where locked up energy (like a coiled serpent) at the ‘mooladhar’ or ‘essence of planet Mars’ - as a model of Krishna in physical form, Himself a re-incarnation or model of the Formless Vishnu - is believed to get released to instantaneously rise (like a Cobra, believably having a ‘nagamani’ on top of its hood, raises itself!) to ‘sahasrara’ ‘the essence of Moon’ in the head! And, similarly visualize it also in the story of Vishnu (related with zero time and space) coming to the help of the ‘elephant’ caught by the ‘crocodile’, with the background knowledge acquired from the Gita wherein Krishna claims both powerful animals as images of His Own!
With the above thoughts and finding many such examples in ‘Nature’, one who has the background knowledge of Hindu mythological stories could perhaps realize the significance of ‘(Yogiraja) Krishna dancing on the hood of the demon serpent Kaliya’, or Ananta or Sheshanaga holding our earth on its hood while Vishnu in ‘yoganidra’ or super conscious state reclined on the bed formed by the celestial serpent in the middle of ‘kshirsagar’ the milky ocean!
Kavitha,Have you visited the site www.shaktisadhana.org ?
Compared to the apparently infinite universe in size, each individual human being virtually is as a bacterium/ virus is to man, out of which one tries to eliminate completely some that in the ‘present’ are believed harmful to humans – and fails again and again, and yet again and thus helping them grow relatively stronger. However, as per the ancients it was because of lack of overall knowledge! For, even a human child becomes rebellious if not handled properly! And, everyone perhaps is aware that bringing up a child to grow into a balanced personality is not an easy task, or rather it’s a Herculean task!
On the other hand, the ‘wise’ Hindus apparently realized each human being to be as powerful and as intelligent as the Formless Creator itself, believably being His image only, but a rare combination in humans in the present, at least! But, an average human being (‘Apsmara Purush’) believably fails to realize it during one life-time, believably because of poor memory, rendered deliberately thus by Creator’s ‘Yogamaya’ or illusion, as part of a grand design - as realized by the ancients who however couldn’t find what the Creator sought, although the general advice to everyone to realize the ‘inner self’ could act as a hint that it sought its own origin, or who he in reality was, in His Own innumerable ever changing images, viz. Shiva/ Earth/ Green, Rama/ Sun/ White, Krishna/ Centre of galaxy/ Red etc., in human/ non living/ colour forms, and so on, despite His super intelligence! And therefore the Creator was believed to be unborn and unending and hence the eternal drama...
Even with the well known fact of transient nature of animal life, man is made ever conscious of his worldly possessions by the human system as long as one lasts for a span of a mere maximum of 100 years plus today, believably because of average man’s physical senses being designed to see ‘outwards’ only, and only rare personalities, called Yogis/ Yogiraja by the ancients, who appear on earth from time to time and have the tendency to make someone like Arjuna to ‘see inwards’ too, as part of the grand design.
Thus, if one was really interested in assessing our real status as one of the temporary members of a huge and ever changing animal world that it believably heads, one comes to learn in the ‘present’, from ‘scientists’ who are apparently interested in knowing the 'truth' or eventually the ‘origin of the universe’, that we are inhabitants of a 4.6 billion-year-old average size planet called earth, with its beautiful exterior, but ‘fire in its heart’, and it appears relatively infinite to us.
As one looks still ‘outwards’, one learns that our earth is one of the members of a planetary system: of many planets and their satellites, if any; planetoids; comets; and so on. One also learns that these Heavenly Bodies (HBs), which form parts of our Solar system, are revolving - in different orbits separated by large distances within an apparently dark space around a powerful and - compared to all planets taken together - an apparently large HB called Sun, which one learns is relatively an average star only, a relatively smaller ball of fire wherein innumerable Hydrogen bombs are exploding per second as part of a chain reaction that is apparently going on for billions of years – 'scientists' not knowing still who triggered it originally!
One also learns, looking further outwards, that our apparently big Solar system to us is, in fact, relatively an insignificant group within innumerable stars that form a disc shaped body in appearance, thick at the centre and thin towards its periphery, called a 'Milky Way galaxy' wherein innumerable HBs, including our solar system, are made to go around its centre, for it believably houses therein a super gravity body called Black Hole, which is a relatively massive star - compared to our sun - that got transformed, sometimes in the long lost past, towards the end of its normal life of billions of years as a star.
And, looking still farther, one learns that there are innumerable other galaxies that also fill the void of the apparently infinite universe that continues to indefinitely expand like an unbreakable balloon to allow new forms to appear - on their transformation from some form in the past - accommodating them and allowing existing temporary HBs to also, like itself, expand with the passage of time.
In view of the above, maybe there is some truth in the ancients’ belief/ realization of man to be only a small scale (crude) model of the universal void, the believable Formless Creator that holds the physical forms within it while remaining itself detached from its contents. And hence the advice to man to fine-tune its analogous computer in the brain to remain detached while maintaining attachment, a relationship similar to that of a kite and its flier, in simpler words!
Kavitha, as I have mentioned earlier elsewhere too, I was inspired more by Shiva from an early age, having learnt from someone that Shiva also had the same ‘Rashi’ as mine, called “Makar”, (that is, moon lying in the 10th house in the horoscope)!
However, I believe I saw a little bit of light after reading the Gita, a copy presented to me on one of my farewells on a transfer by a staff member, but gone into by me only after over 9 years of its receipt, over two decades ago only and consequently recalling many events in my life in the past.
In its Chapter XI is described the event related with realization of ‘Truth’ about human being as an instrument dawning upon ‘expert archer’ Arjuna, (believably seeing through ‘divya chakshu’ or ‘divine eyes’ provided by his charioteer, Krishna), who had related Krishna/ Lord Vishnu all the while till a certain stage as a four handed Divine Person in human form!
If one were to read between the lines the Gita, one could perhaps notice that cryptic clues have been used by the writer(s), which indicate Krishna’s supreme form, Vishnu, also as Earth, the Mrityulok or the HB where all apparent life forms eventually merge with the illusory earth, or ‘Mithya Jagat’! Thus indicating the whole physical universe/ earth as a dream/ thought of the Formless Being!
In an attempt to visualize human life with the help of thoughts of the ‘wise’ ancients, in so far as Sun/ Brahma is concerned, the Hindu Mythology indicates it/ Him concerned only with Black & White (Krishna tells Arjuna that He alone remembers that He has from the very beginning been a fast friend of Arjuna while he couldn't recall it) colours, which is also refleted in an object’s shadow on earth appearing black, and not multi –coloured like the object.
Thus Brahma’s day is indicated as consisting of a day of actions followed by His night of sleep. However, when we come down to humans believed as models of the universe, perhaps in order to include interactions of other colours in the white light, one each associated with one of the selected planets as their representative also, the day apparently gets divided into three equal parts of 8 hours during each of which predominantly physical, mental and apparent ‘inaction’ or sleep is performed. It is only during sleep (called 'ardha-mrit awastha' that is a state of half-death) that energy lost in performing mental and physical actions get regained ‘naturally’!
However, there is a big ‘IF’ attached, i.e., one can feel fully refreshed after waking up only if one experiences virtually a thoughtless sleep, perhaps “like a (‘dead’) log”!
However, ‘Yogiraja Krishna’ (the lucky eighth and only living child of Devaki & Vasudeva – and Vasudha also means Earth that is Shiva the destroyer/ Yogeshwar, and humans are considered to belong to one single family, or ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, thus perhaps relating his human form in Dwaperyuga to Earth-Moon, or Shiva-Shakti, as his parents!) told Arjuna to the effect that He continued to work incessantly lest His ‘Creation’ got destroyed.
In view of the above, maybe, one could visualize human head, i.e., the brain that continues to produce thoughts incessantly, to represent 'Krishna' or 'Pitamber' the one who wears (golden) Yellow coloured garment, as the essence of Moon at the ‘Sahasrara Bandha’ in all humans…
Kavitha, another reaction to newspaper article is given below.
"The photograph of a dog in the ‘fine-leg’ position perhaps is a mysterious communication of the ‘present day’ expression, ‘to go to the dogs’ - from ‘Nature’ (a Super analogous computer)!
And, in the Hindu Mythology the same thought, perhaps more gently, gets reflected in the incident where Yamaraj, the ‘Lord of death’ in the form of a dog on the ‘Mrityulok’ that is Earth, towards the fag-end of Dwaperyuga escorts the Pandavas in human form (the ‘Panchatatvas’ that go into the formation of all physical forms?) to Heaven – back to the undying and unending Formless Creator (Nadbindu the point source of infinite energy)!
[Reference - Forgotten Field – Future of Indian cricket hinges on domestic tournaments by Shri Ronojoy Sen (April 14)]"
- JC
Any communication between humans located at different places, in spoken/ written words through any means, viz. verbally when the concerned are within hearing distances, or through mails/ e-mails using digital computers at any point in the globe, or space even, is through alphanumeric symbols, that is, alphabets and numbers, which can be understood only by one who has been trained and has acquired sufficient knowledge in decoding the symbols used.
With the above-said as the background, one could perhaps imagine how man could feel fooled/ frustrated if one were to realize that the “Creator” has placed the entire “creation” before humans, ‘images of the creator itself’ and hence containing the “supreme knowledge” recorded within the “chakras”, and average man unable to recall it by addition or Yoga and therefore ‘running from pillar to post’ in search of the self!
And, as Anilji has also indicated, some among the ancients have given more importance to gaining knowledge to acquire more and more “Shakti” or power, and pursuing such thought there are many stories to communicate how unlimited numbers of unbalanced personalities, like that of Ravana, Duryodhana, and so many others, couldn’t provide bliss, that is, long lasting happiness to the masses. While there are indicated Yogis who sought only the 'Absolute Truth' and nothing but the 'Absolute Truth' that is Yogeshwar!
The funny thing is that on the other hand one reads about the ‘wise’ ancients’ concept of ‘energy’ lying dormant at the “mooladhar chakra”, like a coiled serpent, and also at seven other ‘chakras’ or wheels that remain unutilized because of lack of overall knowledge. Its reflection can be seen even today in a long strand of thread/ big sized electric cables coiled over a reel/ spool to provide ease in handiling while saving storage space as well as risk of formation of knots; or pictures that continued to be recorded for many years on celluloid and wound on a number of spools, their width depending on the projector’s design, and their total number on the length of the film before the advent of CDs and DVDs etc. when knowledge was progressively gained believably for the nth time in the unending universe (perhaps leading one to the believable ancients’ realization of truth of the whole universe as zero space)…
Hi Kavitha,
A visit after months. Good to see the posts!
Any chance that you visited the museum in Tirupati that I talked about?
Just curious.
It being the month of April, with new year generally believably falling around the 14th day and celebrated as such on the first day of the month of ‘Baisakaha’ by Hindus, whereas man, the believable ‘image of God’ as per ancients, has also been traditionally enjoying fooling all and sundry, symbolically only on the first day of April, perhaps as a reminder at the beginning of summer, when our sun apparently tries to regain its strength after severly cold winter once again, that God is fooling man all the times!
One could perhaps see, as an example, for oneself how a paper currency - even if it’s of a small denomination – if found to have a little cut leads to fooling of a chain of humans, with each trying to pass it off as soon as possible to one who is not watchful and 'foolishly' accepts it!
To imagine the truth, perhaps what is needed is to know/ accept, like the ancients, that life is all about symbols, of communication through images/ graphs, and any numbers of words therefore failing to express an ‘abstract entity’.
Even today, a ‘scientist’/ ‘Artist’ needs graphs and photographs, besides words, to help any other knowledgeable person or even layman visualize whatever thoughts on any subject one wishes to communicate to the masses, for ‘peoples’ participation’ is realized much needed today… and children appear naturally to learn better with the help of comics where there are more of images and less of words…
-JC
There is apparently a child within every ‘grown up’ even – maybe as an unborn image within the head of the Creator! That is, if one were to accept/ belive that the ancients were right in stating, after due consideration of the facts sometimes in the past when they had apparently reached the ‘Absolute Truth’ that starting from a component of infinite energy that unborn and unending ‘Nadbindu’ ever is, each man is a perfect structural model of the Creator who has appeared in human form today perhaps for the first or the nth time.
And, that before appearance for the first time he had to appear earlier to that in 8.4 million or so different animal forms during the last about 4.6 billion years as is the estimated age of our earth/ solar system in the present. Thus, perhaps in real terms, as realized by the ancients and expressed in the statement, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, or “Universal brotherhood”, every one of us is of the same age, irrespective of our location in space or apparent relationship, but unable to realize it because of ‘Maya’!
Perhaps, similarly in the apparently recent times, there is seen a “grown up” man in the present day infants too, as observed today in an appreciable percentage out of those reflecting some unbelievable talents at an early age. Just as infant Krishna believably sucked life out of demon Pootana who attempted to feed it poisonous milk in her breast, every year bravery awards are being presented by the President of India on the Republic Day to selected children who had apparently performed some brave acts that weren’t expected from average children of their age!
With the belief of ‘Absolute Truth’ related with zero space & time, and the physical world as illusory, in order to enjoy the Hindu mythological stories better, I have been consciously in the lookout for small bits of information about planets and stars and other HBs, besides some other subjects also that believably are related with ‘fine arts’.
Thus, when I read about the planet Mercury that apparently is in a hurry, and which, physically as number one or say the leader of the planets, (although there exists a relatively more massive planet Jupiter, which has Saturn-like rings too), is closest to our sun, and therfore popularly called ‘a planet with fire in its mouth’. I imagined this to apply in human system to rash drivers of vehicles, fast runners in athletics, fast bowlers in cricket, and so on, who all are therefore liable to injuries to their person. And this, with the background belief of man as a model of the universe, reminded me of the belief of Rahu (Ultra-violet rays) being associated with physical power in Gurus, like Dronacharya whose advice was sought for training Kaurava soldiers, as different from Jupiter or ‘Brihaspati’ the Guru of the Devtas, that is, selfless persons...
It was in the eighties that I read in the newspaper how S. Chandrashekhara, an American scientist of Indian origin had done research on stars to know what happens to them towards their end when they are categorized in the ‘Red stage’.
I was surprised because it brought to my mind a personal experience in my childhood (related in the next paragraph) when I read how a massive star, greater than around five times the mass of our sun, towards its end expands into a ‘Red Giant’ because of its radial pressure tending to overcome its gravity. And, it then suddenly explodes dispersing all its matter in space. However, with the release of radial pressure its grvity now becomes effective and the entire matter than gets compressed. The process continues till all the matter almost gets consumed due to the generated heat, such that the star gets transformed to a HB of zero or near zero mass, but with super gravity, and is named ‘Black Hole’ because its presence gets known from stars disappering into the hole in space thus created!
My parents and some of us children also used to observe fast on Krishna Janmashtami. One such day, perhaps in the early fifties, my mother asked me to escort her to Laxminarayan Temple in New Delhi near our residence (popular as Birla Mandir), to enable her to join her friends for prayer there, after which I could go and see the exhibits related with Krishna’s life displayed behind the Temple premises. When I was maneuvering the stairs to reach the rear side, I was crushed between the crowd, such that with my inexperienced mind I thought I was dead, for I remained suspended in the dark for some time, unable to breathe properly, till the crowd reached the top where there was more space available and thus I virtually landed safely on the ground!
I then realized the incident as confirmation of the ancients’ concept of man as a model of the universe, which although was communicated to me in the childhood, when my analytical power wasn’t yet developed, but its realization dawned upon me on reading the report when I was mentally mature and capable of analysis of certain related data!
To wound it up, with the refreshed thought of “Yogiraja Krishna” on top of my mind, I was obviously curious to see some examples in ‘Nature’ which could relate with the concept of “activation of kundalini”, with the background essence acquired through various writings about presence of “ashta chakra” within human body.
I could easily relate human form with an eight-storey building. Now, when one finds oneself within the interior of such a building, one is obviously cut off from the outer world. And, therefore, for the necessary ‘air’ and light (‘fire’) and vision of the immediate exterior, generally windows ar provided at all levels in all four directions, wherever possible, to catch sunlight all through the day from some one window or the other. [And I found Acupuncturists refer to ‘windows’ in the skin which if blocked resulted in manifestation of some illness in the body cncerned. Funnily, I had gone to buy greeting cards from a bookshop in Guwahati and while I was waiting for the salesman to bring those from another room, it appeared as if I was made to look up in one of the shelves and find a book on Acupressure by an Amercian doctor amongst many other books, from the title written on its spine. And because those days my wife was receiving acupuncture treatement for Rheumatoid Arthritis, I purchased it too!]
Also for movement from one floor to another, one provides stairs/ and or lifts when numbers of floors exceed four, and human form has believably eight of these, which I felt indicated two sets of four planets each or their essences at different ‘chakras’ to relate with the sympathetic nervous systems. Eight ‘Chakras’ or wheels then led to the thought of thread wound over reels (like coiled serpent) and used in flying kites that reached the ‘sky’ if one had sufficient length of it! Also, hoisting of National Flag brought to my mind climbing of the inert flag (like humans inside lifts reach faster the top) to reach the ‘sky’ and flutter with the wind or ‘air’! (I have already elsewhere written in length the above examples). And so on…one commands better overall vision of the surroundings when one finally reaches the roof... (I am reminded how we had climbed to the roof-top of the LIC bulding in Chennai, that was Madras in the year 1960, by a lift - on payment)!
Hi Kavitha,
Nice post following by some worth comments by ppl like Mr. Joshi.
Here is some scientific info for this flower. In scientific nomenclature, it is known as Couroupita guianensis (Cannon Ball tree)
For more info u can try
http://www.da-academy.org/dagardens_cannon1.html
regards,
Anand
Hi Anand,
Though the flower looks the same there is one explanation that does not allow me to believe we are talking about the same flower.
Uses: "Primarily ornamental; fruits edible and occasionally eaten, but smell of white flesh discourages most people; fruit shells sometimes used as utensils; some fractions of the stem, bark and flowers exhibit antimicrobial activity."
The Nagalingapoo does not smell like flesh at all. It has a fragrance and is offered to Lord Shiva as an important flower during worship.
It may belong to a similar family but essentially I think the two flowers are quite different.
Regds
Kavitha
Hi Badhri,
Nice to have you back. I have not yet visited Thirupati or the museum. I have finally made a post on Narasimha, and depicted the incarnation of Vishnu. I hope you enjoy it.
Regds
Kavitha
Hi Kavitha,
here is more extracts from differnt sites & thats the only species currently existing. so its the same flower that I mentioned.
COUROUPITA GUIANENSIS - CANNONBALL TREE.
Common name
Cannonball tree, boskalebas.
Family
Lecythidaceae (Brazil-nut family).
Overview
A large deciduous tropical tree 75' tall and indigenous to the Amazon rainforest.
The leaves, up to 6" long, are simple with serrate margin; it flowers in racemes which is cauliflorus; the yellow, reddish and pink flowers are stunning fragrant.
These are 3" to 5" waxy aromatic smelling, pink and dark-red flowers growing directly on the bark of the trunk.
The tree bears, directly on the trunk and main branches, large globose woody fruits; they look like big rusty cannonballs hanging in clusters, like balls on a string.
The fruit contains small seeds in a white, unpleasant smelling white jelly, which are exposed when the upper half of the fruit goes off like a cover.
The long dangling fruity branches give the tree an unkempt appearance.
The hard shells are used to make containers and utensils.
Regards,
Anand
Hi Kavitha:
I believe this flower is known as 'Nag Chapha' in Marathi.
Radhika Hingwe
Aswin Kini - i am indebted to you for mentioning the botanical name of Naga Linga flower / Shiva Linga Flower / Shiv Ling Flower as Couroupita guinensis !!
Hello Kavitha, thanks for posting this flower here. It reminds me of my childhood where in we used to pluck these flowers from trees in a park. Also thanks Anil for posting the Botanical name of the tree. But I would like to ask, if this tree is only native to India. Also is it native to some place in India or it is grown all over India. Thank you.
Kavitha are you aware of any story behind this unusual flower ? Do any of the Puranas have a story to tell about this wonderful creation ?
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