Dear Dr. McCartney,

Thank you for your interesting query. The red oleander could not help but remind me of Rabindranath Tagore's Bengali play Raktakarabī written in the 1920s. The heroine of the play Nandinī always wears raktakaravīra flowers, to demonstrate her passionate and profound love for her lover Ranjan. But Tagore uses the raktakarabī to symbolize other things too. Nandini lives in a repressive town, Yakṣapurī, whose exploitative king enslaves and dehumanizes his subjects to mine for gold. All citizens are rendered machines to serve the greed of the ruler for gold. Against this backdrop of use and abuse, the joyously red raktakarabī symbolizes life, freedom, sex, beauty, love, nature, and womanhood. But the flower is also dangerous and can kill. So, Nandinī is also a metaphor of danger and power, a woman who can pose a threat to oppressive social order--a bit I would like to think, like the Goddess in Śākta tradition: a symbol of passion and also of danger! There are also reminiscences of truth-telling heroines of Indian literature in the background: Draupadī, Śakuntalā, Sītā...

There is a charming image of Nandinī bedecked in red oleanders at the bottom of the page here: https://mayaemporium.com.au/not-only-zamindaars-wife

You can see what a statement on stage that flower makes on a protagonist!

I doubt if the founders of the wellness company you mention thought in such depth and sophistication about the flower as Tagore. :)

With best wishes,

Bihani Sarkar MA M.Phil D.Phil (Oxon.) FRHistS, FHEA,

Lecturer in Comparative Non-Western Thought,

Programme Director: Global Religions

Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion,

Lancaster University.

For a full list of publications see: Bihani Sarkar - Lancaster University


Books:

Heroic Shaktism: the Cult of Durga in Ancient Indian Kingship (OUP 2017):
Classical Sanskrit Tragedy: the Concept of Pathos and Suffering in Medieval India (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021)
 
Latest Journal Article (peer-reviewed): The Politics of Memory: Tradition, Decolonization and Challenging Hindutva, a Reflective Essay (Religions 2024, 15(5), 564)
Media (May 2024): BBC 4, Beyond Belief: Monsters and Gods

On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 7:01 AM patrick mccartney via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Dear Friends,

My query focuses on:

red oleander (rakta-karavīra; Nerium oleander) ?

For context, it is used in the logo of an Indian-based wellness company in which both

punarnava & पुनर्नवा are used. It seems this is done on purpose.

What makes this an odd choice for a wellness symbol/name is that oleander is quite toxic and is responsible for many poisonings in India. It contains cardiac glycosides, which inhibit the sodium–potassium adenosine triphosphatase (Na-K-ATPase) pump. Though some Ayurvedic preparations (which I don't know what they are) include treating skin conditions and the root is sometimes used as an abortifacient.

I understand that it is linked with Śiva in some way. Though I don't yet fully know. According to numerology, it is linked to the number 2, which refers to destiny to pursue knowledge and understanding of the human condition. And the red colour is indicative of passion.

Are there any mythological crossover between Greek and Biblical mentions with south Asian mentions? Therefore, I'm wondering if someone might know of any mytho-literary mentions of this flower.

Thank you,


Patrick McCartney



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