In autumn the shiuli flower can be seen across a wide stretch of South Asia, from Thailand to Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. It is also known as shefali, and goes by several other common names, among them parijat, shefalika, coral jasmine, ragapushpi and kharapatraka.

The flower is small and fragrant. Its soft bloom has six white petals, while the stalk is orange and the orange colour spreads in a ring where the petals meet. The fruit is flat, brown and heart-shaped. The flowers open at night and drop in the morning, and shiuli fallen on dew-soaked ground makes a beautiful sight.

The shiuli is sometimes called the "tree of sorrow", because the flowers lose their brightness in daylight. It has enchanted not only poets: over the ages it has won countless admirers.

The shiuli, or parijat, appears many times in Hindu mythology. Krishna's two wives, Satyabhama and Rukmini, longed for their gardens to be filled with the scent of parijat. But the parijat was the glory of heaven. Wanting to please his wives, Krishna secretly broke a branch from the parijat tree in heaven and planted it in Satyabhama's garden, and its flowers also fell into Rukmini's garden and spread their fragrance there.

When Indra, the king of heaven, learned of this he was furious. He had been secretly angry with the avatar of Vishnu, and so he cursed Krishna: the parijat tree in Krishna's garden would bear flowers, but never fruit, and its seed would never give rise to new life.

In Ayurvedic medicine the leaves have more medicinal value than the flowers. Shiuli leaves are used for painful conditions such as sciatica, arthritis and fever, and the seeds are said to help remove dandruff.

• For sciatic pain: every morning, chop two to four shiuli leaves and two to four tulsi leaves together, boil them in water, strain it and drink it morning and evening.
• For arthritis pain: every morning, boil two shiuli leaves and two tulsi leaves in a cup of water, like tea, strain it and drink it.
• Shiuli leaf juice taken with warm water morning and afternoon is said to expel roundworms and reduce threadworms.
• For a hoarse throat, shiuli leaf juice taken twice a day, morning and afternoon, is said to help.

The flowers can also be used to make a yellow dye. The stalks are dried and ground into a powder, which gives a fine colour when mixed with lukewarm water.

Source: Samakal. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.