NR-016Ingredient Atlas entry · Herb

Holy basil

Ocimum tenuiflorum, also called Ocimum sanctum, from the mint family

An Inquisition order to tear it up, a curse that turned a god to stone, a fakir pouring the Ganges over it and an umbrella in a Goan yard. A friar saw holy basil at Hindu doors seven hundred years ago. Wikipedia says it is in the Rigveda. Nobody has found it there.

  • Part used: leaf
  • Most tested as a mouthwash or gel
  • Mostly 1 to 9 weeks
Version 1.3
A holy basil plant in flower
A holy basil plant in flower. Photo by Vengolis, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Pull it up at once

Portuguese Goa, April 1736. The Inquisition orders every tulsi plant uprooted.1, 2

The three inquisitors of Goa signed and sealed their edict on Saturday 14 April, and the next day it was read out in the cathedral. Every parish priest in Goa, Salcete and Bardez was to read it from the pulpit, in a loud and clear voice, every Sunday and holy day for two months.1

It was aimed at Goa's Christians. The inquisitors told the viceroy why. The public sentencings at the recent autos-da-fé had made it notorious how many still kept Hindu ways. No Hindu music at weddings. No rice cooked without salt. No fasting on the eleventh day of the moon. Men were not to wear the dhoti, and women were not to wear the choli.1, 2

Then came the plant. Nobody, "even the Portuguese", was to keep tulsi in a house yard, a palm grove or a farm. Wherever it grew, it was to be pulled up at once. Anyone who knew of a Christian breaking these rules had thirty days to denounce them to the Holy Office, on pain of excommunication.1, 2

The viceroy, the Count of Sandomil, approved. He wrote that even if the customs did no harm beyond their likeness to Hindu ones, it would be well to tear out their roots entirely. He meant to back the edict with a decree of his own. The chancellor objected at once. Many of the banned acts were "not directly against the faith", he argued. To have the Inquisition punish the king's subjects for them would be a "grave oppression".3

Sandomil dropped the decree. The edict alone, he told the king that December, was enough to wipe out the customs, "as experience has shown in more than eight months".3

It was a large order for a small plant. Tulsi grew beside almost every Hindu house in India, and had for centuries.4, 5

A plant before every door

Four hundred years earlier, a Franciscan friar had seen it on the same coast. In the early 1320s Odoric of Pordenone landed at Tana, today's Thane, where four friars had been put to death in 1321 for blasphemy against the Prophet.5, 6

"In this country every man hath before his house a plant of twigs as thick as a pillar would be here," Odoric said, "and this never withers as long as it gets water."5

His Victorian editor, Henry Yule, thought the passage mangled in the dictation, but he had no doubt about the plant. It was the sacred tulsi. A Carmelite, Vincenzo Maria, described it in a book of 1672. Before every house it grew on a little walled altar, where people bowed and prayed every day.5

John Fryer, a surgeon for the East India Company, reached India in 1673. In his account, Hindus of the middle sort plastered the ground before their mud houses with cow dung. Beside it they kept "a little place or two built up a Foot Square of Mud". In it grew what Fryer took for calamint, "or (by them called) Tulce, which they worship every Morning, and tend with diligence."7, 8

In 1690 the tenth volume of Hendrik van Rheede's Latin book of the plants of Malabar came out in Amsterdam. One of its basils, with red-brown stems, dark leaves and flowers all year round, stands apart. Of all the kinds it alone is "sacred and dedicated to the god Vishnu". It is so honoured that every Brahmin carries it with him.9

A 17th-century manuscript in Konkani, the language of Goa, describes a festival on the day after the great Diwali. Everyone in the house bathes and sits in a ring round the tulsi, and the neighbours crowd in. The head of the family hands out toasted rice, jaggery, and pieces of coconut and sugar cane. Then they all shout at the foot of the plant, "Goindá, Goindá!"10

Thy heart is like a stone

In the Devi Bhagavata Purana, a Sanskrit text from between the 9th and 14th centuries, Tulasi is the faithful wife of Shankhachuda, a demon king at war with the god Shiva. He could not die while he wore Vishnu's armour and his wife stayed chaste.11, 12

For the gods' sake, Vishnu took the demon's armour and his form and went to her house. Drums sounded at her door. She gave away riches, washed his feet and wept for joy to see her husband home from the war. Then he slept with her, and she knew it was not her husband.11

By that trick, she said, he had taken her virtue and killed her husband. "Thy heart is like a stone," she told the god. "So let Thee be turned into a stone."11

Vishnu answered with a promise. Her body would become the river Gandaki, and her hair the sacred plants named after her, whose leaves the three worlds would offer in worship. Her curse would turn him to stone on the river's bank, where insects with sharp teeth carve rings into the shalagrams, the sacred stones worshipped as him.11

A Sanskrit dictionary of plants, the Rajanighantu, gives tulsi nineteen names. Among them are "beloved of Vishnu", "the purifier", "free of demons" and "ghost-slayer".13

In the 1570s the poet Tulsidas began his Hindi retelling of the Ramayana. In it the monkey hero Hanuman shrinks to a tiny form and creeps through the demon city of Lanka looking for Rama's stolen wife, Sita. He finds a house marked with Rama's emblems, sees some fresh sprigs of tulsi, and is overjoyed. Lanka is home to a gang of demons, he thinks, so how can a pious man live here? Inside, Vibhishan wakes and begins to repeat Rama's name.14

Hardly any smell

Carl Linnaeus named the plant three times. In 1753 he called it Ocimum tenuiflorum, a plant of Malabar whose flowers were so small they could scarcely be seen with the naked eye.15

Fourteen years later, on a single page, he named it twice more. One was Ocimum monachorum, the monks' basil. The other was Ocimum sanctum, the holy one, described from a plant in the garden at Uppsala with dark purple stems, bright purple flowers and "hardly any smell".16

William Roxburgh, a Scottish surgeon and botanist in India, found otherwise. His Flora Indica came out at Serampore in 1832, after his death, and said it always grew in the gardens of Hindu temples, "in flower all the year round". It was "a very grateful smelling plant", he wrote, and "the brahmins hold it sacred to their gods Krishnu and Vishnu."17, 18

Botanists now count all three names as one plant, and the oldest wins, so holy basil is Ocimum tenuiflorum, the slender-flowered basil.19

The shrub goddess of the ghats

Early on 7 December 1844, Fanny Parkes left Raj Ghat at Benares. Her boat was towed past the city's river steps, the ghats, and she stopped now and then to sketch them. A Welsh traveller, she had first come to India in 1822.20, 21

On a small ghat lay Bhim Singh, a giant of black stone. He lay on his back with his crowned head on raised masonry, and at his right side stood a little cone of mud with a tulsi plant on top.20

Beyond him, small ghats rose from the river, each with its own cone-shaped tulsi altar and, beside most of them, a fakir's flag on a long thin bamboo. A man who looked like a begging fakir came down to the water with a pole in one hand and a joint of thick bamboo in the other. From the bamboo, Parkes wrote, "he poured some of the holy stream of the Ganges on the little shrub goddess the tulsi."20

George Birdwood wrote from Bombay in the 1860s that in the villages of the Deccan "the fair Brahminee may be seen every morning". Once she had ground the corn and dressed, she walked round and round the tulsi on its little altar before her husband's home, asking heaven to bless him and his children.22

In 1893 the authors of Pharmacographia Indica reported tulsi even in the European compounds of Calcutta. Hardly a doorkeeper's or an Oriya bearer's hut there was without a pot of it by the door.23

When a Hindu died, his head was washed in water with tulsi leaves and sesame seeds, and a sprig went on his breast for the journey. Whoever destroyed the plant was "abhorred of Vishnu". It could be picked only for worship or medicine, and only with a prayer. "Mother Tulasi," it began, and it went on, "I gather thee for the worship of Narayana."23

Since 5000 BC

The laboratories came late. The oldest paper on the plant in PubMed, the medical index, dates from 1959. In 1981 two researchers published "Anti-stress activity of Ocimum sanctum Linn.", from tests on mice and rats. By 1992 pharmacologists in Delhi were stressing rats by holding them still, some dosed first with the plant, and calling it an adaptogen.24, 25, 26

Online, the plant is far older. Tulsi, the line goes, has been used as medicine since 4000 or 5000 BC, and it is in the Rigveda, the ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns. Wikipedia's article on tulsi in Hinduism says both, and its source for them is a 2019 page by a seller of Ayurvedic products.27, 28

The Rigveda is easy to check. Its whole Sanskrit text is online, and a search of all ten books finds no tulasi. The great Sanskrit dictionary of 1899 knows the word only from the Puranas, which came many centuries later.29, 30

The plant is old all the same. Charaka's medical compendium, compiled between about 100 BC and AD 200, lists among its greens a herb called surasa that "kills foul smells". The Rajanighantu gives surasa as one of tulsi's names. That is two thousand years. It is not 5000 BC.13, 31

The date has a paper trail. In 2005 two researchers at a dental college in Rishikesh began a review of tulsi with a few paragraphs on plants in general. The use of plants as medicine, they wrote, "is as old as 4000–5000 B.C." In India the earliest references appear in the Rigveda, "said to be written between 3500–1600 B.C."32

In 2017 a review from Pakistan cited the Rishikesh paper and gave tulsi a garbled date of its own, "since 400-500 BC", and the Rigveda too. "Earliest references of Tulsi were found in Rigveda (3500-1600 BC)," it said.33

The seller's page is dated 2019 and has both Rishikesh numbers in full, now for tulsi alone. It says tulsi has been used "since 4000 to 5000 B.C." and the Rigveda is "3500 to 1600 B.C old". Wikipedia cites the seller. Followed back, the trail ends at a sentence about plants in general.27, 28, 32

An umbrella in the rain

Goa, October 2025. Families paint their tulsi altars a few days before the plant's wedding to Vishnu. That year the heavy rain ran on into the last week of the month.34

In Chopde, in North Goa, Tina Govekar painted hers herself in a short break in the rain, and put an umbrella over it until the paint dried. Born a Christian, she has kept the rites of the Hindu family she married into for thirty-three years.34

The wedding fell on 2 November. In Vasco, Neeta Honavarkar, also born a Christian, gives the plant turmeric that morning, as for a bride, then marigolds, mango leaves and a red dress. On an island near Vasco, half an hour away by boat, a tulsi altar stands beside a cross. On the wedding morning, Hindus hold the rite at one while Christians hear Mass at the other.34

The trials in people, mostly of mouthwashes and gels, are in the Research tab.35

In 1736 the Holy Office told Goa to pull the plant up at once. In Chopde, a woman born a Christian put an umbrella over its altar until the paint dried.

See what modern trials found

Myths and facts

In the record, or legend?

Every story you will read about this plant, checked against the oldest source we could find.

  • Tulsi has been used as medicine since 4000 to 5000 BC

    Legend

    The date traces back to a 2005 review's sentence about plants in general ("4000–5000 B.C."). A 2017 review gave tulsi a garbled form of it ("since 400-500 BC"). A seller's page dated 2019 gives tulsi the full figure, with no source, and Wikipedia cites the seller. The oldest text we found that names a plant later called tulsi is Charaka's compendium, compiled between about 100 BC and AD 20013, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33

  • Tulsi has been used for 5,000 years

    Told, not shown

    Wikipedia gives the figure with two journal citations we could not find. The oldest text we found that names the plant, as surasa, is Charaka's, about two thousand years old27, 31

  • Tulsi is mentioned in the Rigveda

    Legend

    A search of the whole Rigveda finds no tulasi, and the 1899 Sanskrit dictionary cites the word only from the Puranas. The 2005 review said only that India's earliest references to plants as medicine are in the Rigveda. A 2017 review gave the Rigveda to tulsi, and the seller's page, which Wikipedia cites, says the same27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33

  • Tulsi has been used in Ayurveda for more than 3,000 years

    Told, not shown

    Said without a source in a 2017 review. The oldest medical text we found that names it, as surasa, is Charaka's, about two thousand years old31, 36

  • Charaka's surasa is tulsi

    Likely

    Charaka's text names surasa, and the Rajanighantu lists surasa among tulsi's nineteen names. Charaka himself does not describe the plant13, 31

  • The Goa Inquisition ordered tulsi uprooted

    In the record

    The edict of 14 April 1736, printed from the Goa archive in 1858, orders it pulled up "logo", at once, wherever it grew1, 2

  • Odoric saw tulsi at Thane in the 1320s

    Likely

    His "plant of twigs as thick as a pillar" before every house is garbled. His editor Henry Yule read it as tulsi, and Vincenzo Maria's 1672 account of an altar and a shrub before every house fits5

  • Every Brahmin carried tulsi

    Told, not shown

    Rheede's 1690 book says so of a dark basil sacred to Vishnu, which we take to be tulsi. It is a general claim, not a count9

  • Holy basil and Ocimum sanctum are the same plant as Ocimum tenuiflorum

    In the record

    Botanists treat O. sanctum and O. monachorum, both named by Linnaeus in 1767, as later names for his O. tenuiflorum (1753), which takes priority15, 16, 19

  • Linnaeus said holy basil had hardly any smell

    In the record

    He wrote "Odor vix ullus" of one plant in the Uppsala garden. Every Indian account we read says the opposite. Roxburgh called it "a very grateful smelling plant", and Vincenzo Maria "of more pungent odour" than garden basil5, 16, 17

In the record means a source from the time, or a scholar quoting one, says it. Likely means a named expert's reasoned identification. Told, not shown means one interested party says it and nothing checks it. Partly means a real event sits under a bigger story. Legend means the earliest source is far too late or missing. Wrong date means the event is real but the popular date doesn't match the record.

Notes

Every fact in the story points to one of these. Where a translation is ours, the note says so.

Show all 36 notes Hide the notes
  1. J. H. da Cunha Rivara, Ensaio historico da lingua concani (Nova-Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1858), Documento n.º 59, pp. 368-380 (page numbers and dates read off the page images), https://archive.org/details/rivara-ensaio-historico-da-lingua-concani . Translation ours. The inquisitors' covering letter to the viceroy (pp. 369-370), dated "Goa em Mesa 18 de Abril de 1736" and signed Antonio de Amaral Coutinho, José Peixoto de Moreira and Fr. Caetano de S. José, says: "Remettemos a V. Ex.ª o Edital, que Domingo fizemos publicar na Sé, e outras Igrejas desta Cidade, e nos Domingos, e dias Santos seguintes, se publicará nas mais Igrejas destas ilhas, e de Salcete, e Bardez" (we send Your Excellency the edict, which on Sunday we had published in the cathedral and other churches of this city, and on the following Sundays and holy days it will be published in the other churches of these islands, and of Salcete and Bardez); the Christian religion, it says, "se acha tão opprimida com a observancia do gentilismo em tantos Christãos deste Estado, como se tem feito notorio nos proximos autos da fé" (is so oppressed by the observance of heathen customs by so many Christians of this State, as the recent autos-da-fé have made known). The edict (pp. 370-380) is issued by "Os Inquisidores Apostolicos contra a heretica pravidade, e apostasia nesta Cidade, e Arcebispado de Goa" and addressed item by item to "os ditos naturaes da India". P. 378: "Item. Mandamos aos ditos naturaes da India, e tambem a todos os moradores dos sobreditos districtos, ainda Portuguezes, que não tenhão nos quintaes de suas casas, nem nos anganás, nem em seus palmares, e fazendas, a planta chamada Tulossi, e em qualquer parte, donde a houver, a arranquem logo" (we order the said natives of India, and also all residents of the said districts, even Portuguese, that they shall not have in the yards of their houses, nor in their anganás [house-yards], nor in their palm groves and farms, the plant called Tulossi, and in any place where there is any, they shall pull it up at once). P. 380: all persons who know of others "que sendo christãas forão contra as sobreditas nossas prohibições" are to come and denounce them "ante Nós, ou diante de nossos Commissarios em termo de 30 dias", under "pena de excommunhão maior, ipso facto incurrenda"; parish priests of "a Ilha de Goa, a mais ilhas suas adjacentes, e Provincias de Salcete, e Bardez" are to read it and have it "explicar na lingua da terra, aonde necessario fôr, nos pulpitos estando o povo junto em Domingo e dia Santo, em alta e intellegivel voz", "por tempo de dois mezes da primeira publicação" every Sunday and holy day, and then "na primeira Dominga do Advento, e na primeira Dominga da quaresma"; "Dado em Goa no Santo Officio sob os nossos signaes, e sello delle aos quatorze dias do mez de Abril ... de mil settecentos trinta e seis annos", signed by the same three; archive reference "L.º 106, fl. 117". 14 April 1736 was a Saturday (Gregorian calendar, our calculation), so the "Domingo" before the letter of Wednesday 18 April is 15 April. ↩
  2. A. K. Priolkar, The Goa Inquisition (1961; reprint New Delhi: Voice of India, 1998), pp. 96-107, English translation of the 1736 edict (edition read off the imprint page image), https://archive.org/details/goa-inquisition-a.-k.-priolkar . P. 105 (page image): "The said natives of India, as well as all residents of the aforesaid districts including the Portuguese, are hereby ordered that they should not have in their home gardens, anganas (house-yards), cocoanut gardens, or other properties, the plant known as Tulosi, and if it exists in any place it should be uprooted immediately"; the same page orders "that men should not either in public or at home wear purvem (dhoti) as it is the custom of Hindu men to do, and that women should not wear cholis". Pp. 104-105 ban fasts "on the eleventh day of the new moon or full moon". P. 98: "they should not use Gaitas, or other Hindu musical instruments" at weddings; p. 104: "they should not use in their meals rice cooked without salt". Priolkar translates "palmares" as coconut gardens; we say palm groves. His translation stops at the last ban (p. 107) and leaves out the closing clauses, so the thirty days and the excommunication rest on note 1. What an auto-da-fé was: Priolkar prints Charles Dellon's account of one at Goa, where after the sermon "two Readers alternately appeared in the pulpit to declare aloud the accusations, and announce the punishments to which the criminals were sentenced" (part II, p. 57, page image). ↩
  3. Letter of the viceroy, the Conde de Sandomil, to the king, Goa, 29 December 1736, in Cunha Rivara (note 1), Doc. 59, pp. 368-369 (date read off the page image). Translation ours. He judged it "conveniente que se publicasse, para que se extinguissem os ditos costumes, ainda que delles se não seguisse outro damno, mais que a semilhança com os da gentilidade, cujas raizes seria bem que de todo se arrancassem" (fitting that it be published, so that the said customs should be extinguished, even though no other harm followed from them than their likeness to those of the heathen, whose roots it would be well to tear out entirely), and "inclinei-me tambem a corroborar a prohibição com o alvará" (I was inclined also to back the ban with a decree). But "o Chanceller, logo que o Edital se publicou, me requereu que me oppusesse á sua observancia" (the Chancellor, as soon as the edict was published, asked me to oppose its observance), and wanted the Crown attorney to ask the same "com o fundamento de que muitas das acções prohibidas não erão contra a fé directamente, e seria oppressão grave aos vassallos de V. Magestade, sujeitarem-se a ser castigados pela Inquisição por qualquer das ditas acções" (on the ground that many of the banned acts were not directly against the faith, and it would be a grave oppression of Your Majesty's subjects to be made liable to punishment by the Inquisition for any of them). He resolved "a não mandar passar o alvará" (not to issue the decree), not doubting that the edict "fosse muito bastante a extinguir os costumes nelle condemnados, como já a experiencia tem mostrado em mais de oito mezes da sua observancia" (was quite enough to extinguish the customs it condemned, as experience has already shown in more than eight months of its observance). ↩
  4. George Watt, A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, vol. 5 (Calcutta, 1891), "Ocimum sanctum", p. 444 (page read off the scan's running head), https://archive.org/details/DictionaryOfTheEconomicProductsOfIndia5 : it is "found in or near almost every Hindu house throughout India", and "near every Hindu house it is cultivated in pots or on brick or earthen pillars with hollows at the top in which earth is deposited; it is daily watered and worshipped by all the members of the family." ↩
  5. Henry Yule (trans. and ed.), Cathay and the Way Thither, new edition revised by Henri Cordier, vol. 2, Odoric of Pordenone (London: Hakluyt Society, 1913), https://archive.org/details/cathaywaythither02yule . P. 116, Odoric at Tana: "In this country every man hath before his house a plant of twigs as thick as a pillar would be here, and this never withers as long as it gets water." Yule's note 2, same page: "This passage must have been mangled in the dictation. But it is evident that what is spoken of is the sacred Tulasi or Basil (Ocymum Sanctum)", quoting Vincenzo Maria (1672), p. 300, in Yule's translation: "Almost all the Hindus... adore a plant like our Basilico Gentile, but of more pungent odour... Everyone before his house has a little altar, girt with a wall half an ell high, in the middle of which they erect certain pedestals like little towers, and in these the shrub is grown. They recite their prayers daily before it, with repeated prostrations, sprinklings of water, etc." Elsewhere Yule writes "In 1672 P. Vincenzo Maria describes" (the year of his book) and "In the middle of the seventeenth century, P. Vincenzo, the Procurator-General of the Carmelites, says"; we have no date for when he saw it. A footnote to Yule's introduction cites d'Avezac for Odoric reaching "Tana in 1322", adding "I do not trace the authority for such precision", so the story says "early 1320s". Yule's introduction: at Tana or Surat Odoric "gathered the bones of the four brethren who had suffered there in 1321"; in May 1330, at the house of his order at St Anthony's in Padua, "he related his story, which was taken down and done into homely Latin by William of Solagna". We read Vincenzo Maria only as Yule quotes him. The note on the tulasi is already in Yule's first edition (London: Hakluyt Society, 1866), vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/CathayAndTheWayThitherVol1 , whose biographical notice says that at Tana, "or from Surat, where Jordanus had deposited them, he gathered the bones of the four brethren who had suffered there in 1321, and carried them with him on his voyage eastward". ↩
  6. Wikipedia, "Odoric of Pordenone", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoric_of_Pordenone : "Odoric landed on the western Indian coast at Tana [Thane], where Thomas of Tolentino and his three Franciscan companions had recently been martyred for 'blaspheming' Muhammad before the local magistrate or qadi." ↩
  7. John Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, in Eight Letters, Being Nine Years Travels Begun 1672, and Finished 1681 (London, 1698), Letter IV, ch. VI, p. 199 (read off the page image), https://archive.org/details/b30325043 : the houses of "the middle sort of the Gentues" are "with Mud one Story; floored with Cow-dung ... They plaster Cow-dung before their Doors, and so keep them clean, having a little place or two built up a Foot Square of Mud, where they plant Calaminth, or (by them called) Tulce, which they worship every Morning, and tend with diligence." The passage sits in Fryer's general account of India's cities and buildings, after "The Poorer are made of Boughs". The text layer reads "Zale"; the page image reads "Tulce". Hobson-Jobson's entry TOOLSY quotes the same line. ↩
  8. Wikipedia, "John Fryer (travel writer)", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fryer_(travel_writer) : "In 1672 he was appointed as a surgeon for the British East India Company"; he "arrived on 26 June 1673 at Masulipatnam"; A new account of East-India and Persia was published in 1698. ↩
  9. Hendrik van Rheede tot Drakestein, Horti Malabarici pars decima (Amsterdam, 1690), Tab. 87, "Soladi-tirtava", p. 173 (year and page read off the title page and page images), https://archive.org/details/Hortus_Indicus_Malabaricus_Volume10 . Translation ours. After describing the Soladi-tirtava ("Lingua Bramannum Bui-Tolassi"), the text goes on: "Est & alia species, ab hac non differens, praeter quod caulibus sit rubrofuscis & foliis viridiobscuris, & floribus ex albo rubescentibus. Toto reperitur anno, semper florens, ex omnibus speciebus sola sacra & Deo Vistnu dicata, maximoque in honore, adeo ut Bramannum nullus sit, qui hanc secum non ferat plantam" (There is also another kind, not different from this except that its stems are red-brown and its leaves dark green, and its flowers white turning red. It is found all year, always flowering, of all the kinds the only one sacred and dedicated to the god Vishnu, and held in the greatest honour, so that there is no Brahmin who does not carry this plant with him). Tabs. 85-87 are three basils ("Nala-tirtava", Brahmin name "Talassi", p. 169). The title page names van Rheede "quondam Malabarici Regni Gubernatorem" (formerly governor of the kingdom of Malabar). That the sacred dark kind is holy basil is our identification (high confidence). It is the only basil Rheede calls sacred to Vishnu. Its red-brown stems, dark leaves and year-round flowers match Roxburgh's O. sanctum, the "Krishna Toolasi", with branches "dark purple", leaves "dark-coloured", "in flower all the year round" (note 17). Rheede says Tab. 87 agrees "in omnibus pene" (in almost everything) with Tab. 85, which Roxburgh refers to O. sanctum; Roxburgh refers Tab. 87 itself to another basil that he also calls Toolasi. ↩
  10. Cunha Rivara (note 1), pp. 192-193 (pages read off the page image), "Exposição do Gentilismo da Asia—MS", a fragment of a manuscript "em letra do seculo 17.º" (in a 17th-century hand), with chapter titles in Portuguese and text in Konkani. Cap. 119, "D'outra festa, que se chama Qhirabãdi, que he o seguinte dia de Uhaddoly Diually", in Rivara's Portuguese: "Neste dia todas as pessoas da casa depois de tomarem o banho, se assentam em roda de Tullossi (certa planta sagrada); aonde se reunem os visinhos e muita gente; o chefe da familia reparte neste momento muito arroz torrado, jagra, pedaços de côco, e de cannas, que traz; e elles todos gritam ao pé de Tullossi, dizendo,—Goindá, Goindá" (on this day all the people of the house, after bathing, sit in a ring round the Tullossi; the neighbours and many people gather there; the head of the family then hands out a lot of toasted rice, jaggery, pieces of coconut and of cane, which he brings; and they all shout at the foot of the Tullossi, saying, Goindá, Goindá). Rivara glosses Uhaddoly Divally as "Divalli o grande". Translation from Rivara's Portuguese ours; we did not translate the Konkani. ↩
  11. Swami Vijnanananda (trans.), The Srimad Devi Bhagavatam, Book 9, ch. 24, "On the glory of Tulasî" (Allahabad: Sacred Books of the Hindus, 1921-22), pp. 897-903, https://sacred-texts.com/hin/db/bk09ch24.htm (blocks automated checks; free copy of the same translation at https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/devi-bhagavata-purana/d/doc57337.html ). The boon, in the same translation: Book 9, ch. 22, p. 894, "Brahmā granted him this boon that until the Viṣṇu's Kavaca will remain on his neck and until his wife's chastity be not violated, old age and death will not be able to touch him" (https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/devi-bhagavata-purana/d/doc57335.html ); ch. 19, p. 882, Hari: "No one will he able to kill him as long as be holds the above Kavaca" and "Thou also didst give him the boon that his death would occur when the chastity of of his wife would be destroyed" (https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/devi-bhagavata-purana/d/doc57332.html ). Page numbers for chs. 19, 22 and 24 are the printed pages marked in the wisdomlib transcription. "For accomplishing the ends of the Devas, Bhagavân Hari assumed the Vaisnavî Mâyâ, took the Kavacha from S'ankhachûda and assuming his form, went to the house of Tulasî. Dundubhis (celestial drums) were sounded at Her door"; "She offered riches to the Brâhmins"; "Seeing her dear husband before her, She became very glad and washed his feet and shed tears of joy"; she asks "how you have come out victorious in war with Mahâdeva". P. 898: "Hari, the Lord of the world, slept and then engaged in sexual intercourse with her. But the chaste Tulasî, finding this time her experience quite different from what She used to enjoy before, argued all the time within herself and at last questioned him": "Who are you? O Magician! By spreading your magic, you have enjoyed me. As you have taken my chastity, I will curse you." Then: "O Lord! Thou art like a stone. Thou hast no mercy. By hypocrisy Thou hast destroyed my chastity, my virtue and for that reason didst kill my husband. O Lord! Thou had no mercy; Thy heart is like a stone. So Let Thee be turned into a stone." Hari answers: "This body of yours will be known by the name of Gandakî ... Your hairs will be turned into sacred trees and as they will be born of you, you will be known by the name of Tulasî. All the three worlds will perform their Pûjâs with the leaves and flowers of this Tulasî"; "I will be turned into stone by your curse; I will remain in India close to the bank of the river Gandakî. Millions and millions of insects with their sharp teeth will make rings, (the convolutions in the S'âlagrâma or sacred stones), on the cavities of the mountains there, representing Me." P. 901: "Where there is the S'âlagrâma stone there exists S'rî Hari Himself", followed by the rules for worshipping it. Shalagram is the usual modern spelling. P. 903: "Bhagavân Hari, too, became also converted into a holy mountain, on the banks thereof, yielding religious merits to the people. The insects cut and fashion many pieces out of that mountain." Shankhachuda is a Dânava king throughout Book 9. ↩
  12. Wikipedia, "Devi Bhagavata Purana", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devi_Bhagavata_Purana : one scholar argued for a pre-6th-century date, "but this early date has not found wide support", and most scholars date it "between the 9th and the 14th century". Britannica, "Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa", https://www.britannica.com/topic/Devi-Bhagavata-Purana (blocks automated checks): "The date of its composition is unknown; scholars have dated it as early as the 6th century ce and as late as the 14th century." ↩
  13. Narahari, Rājanighaṇṭu, varga 10, verses 148-150, GRETIL e-text (data entry Oliver Hellwig), https://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/sa_narahari-rAjanighaNTu.xml : "tulasī subhagā tīvrā pāvanī viṣṇuvallabhā / surejyā surasā jñeyā kāyasthā suradundubhī // surabhir bahupatrī ca mañjarī sā haripriyā / apetarākṣasī śyāmā gaurī tridaśamañjarī / bhūtaghnī pūtapatrī ca jñeyā caikonaviṃśatiḥ" (rajni_10.148-149), nineteen names. Our translations: viṣṇuvallabhā, beloved of Vishnu; pāvanī, the purifier; apetarākṣasī, she from whom demons have gone, "free of demons"; bhūtaghnī, killer of ghosts or spirits, "ghost-slayer". Surasā is the seventh name. The story gives the Rājanighaṇṭu no date. The Wellcome Collection catalogue names its author as "Naraharipaṇḍita, active 1235-1250" (record of a 1933 edition, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/p2umvsa2 ); we did not check other datings. ↩
  14. F. S. Growse (trans.), The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás, sixth edition, revised and corrected (Allahabad: Ram Narain Lal, 1914; edition and year read off the title page image), https://archive.org/details/rmyanaoftuls00tulauoft . P. 487 (page image), Book 5: "In the tiny form that he had assumed, Hanumán entered the city ... Carefully inspecting every separate palace, he found everywhere warriors innumerable. When he had come to Rávan's court ... The monkey saw him in bed asleep, but no trace of Síta in the room. He then noticed another splendid building, with a temple of Hari standing apart"; Dohá 5: "The beauty of the chamber emblazzoned with Ráma's insignia was indescribable. At the sight of some fresh springs [sic, for sprigs] of tulsi, the monkey chief was enraptured"; "'Lanká is the abode of a gang of demons, how can the pious have any home here?' While the monkey was thus reasoning within himself, Vibhíshan awoke and at once began to repeat Ráma's name in prayer." P. 497 (page image), Dohá 21, Hanumán to Rávan: "he it is whose messenger I am, and it is his beloved spouse whom you have stolen away." Introduction, p. xii: Tulsi Dás "commenced its composition at Ayodhyá in the Sambat year 1631, corresponding to 1575 A.D.", and "He died in the Sambat year 1680 (1624 A.D.)". Growse translates from "the original Hindi" (title page). ↩
  15. Carl Linnaeus, Species Plantarum, vol. 2 (Stockholm, 1753), pp. 597-598, Ocimum no. 4, tenuiflorum (read off the page images), https://archive.org/details/b30534914_0002 : "OCIMUM foliis ovato-oblongis serratis, bracteis cordatis reflexis concavis. Habitat in Malabaria"; "Corolla parva, purpurascens"; "Flores tam parvi, ut vix nudis oculis conspiciantur" (the flowers so small that they can scarcely be seen with the naked eye). "Tenuiflorum" means slender-flowered (tenuis, slender, and flos, flower), our gloss. ↩
  16. Carl Linnaeus, Mantissa Plantarum (Stockholm, 1767), p. 85, Ocymum no. 11, sanctum (read off the page image), https://archive.org/details/CarLinneMantiss00Linn : "OCYMUM foliis ovatis serratis undulatis, caule hirto, bracteis cordatis. Habitat in India"; "Caulis ... atropurpureus" (stem dark purple); "Corolla laete purpurea" (corolla bright purple); "Odor vix ullus" (hardly any smell); "H. U." Translation ours. On the same page, no. 9, monachorum: "OCYMUM staminibus edentulis", with the older name "Ocymum caryophyllatum monachorum. Bauh." (the monks' clove basil), also marked "H. U." We read "H. U." as Hortus Upsaliensis, the Uppsala garden, Linnaeus's mark for a plant he described there (our reading, high confidence). "Sanctum" means holy. ↩
  17. William Roxburgh, Flora Indica; or, Descriptions of Indian Plants, vol. 3 (Serampore, 1832), p. 14, "O. sanctum" (title page and page read off the images; the title page says "by the late William Roxburgh"), https://archive.org/details/floraindicaordes03roxb : "Nalla-Tirtava. Rheed. Mal. x. t. 85"; "Beng. and Hind. Kala, or Krishna Toolasi or Toolsi"; "Is always found cultivated in the gardens belonging to the Hindoo temples, in flower all the year round"; "This is a very grateful smelling plant, the brahmins hold it sacred to their gods Krishnu and Vishnu." ↩
  18. Wikipedia, "William Roxburgh", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Roxburgh : "a Scottish surgeon and botanist who worked extensively in India"; died 18 February 1815 (the infobox gives 10 April 1815). ↩
  19. Plants of the World Online (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), "Ocimum tenuiflorum L.", https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:453130-1 (blocks automated checks), lists Ocimum sanctum L. and Ocimum monachorum L. as synonyms; as cited by Wikipedia, "Ocimum tenuiflorum", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimum_tenuiflorum (synonyms include "Ocimum monachorum L." and "Ocimum sanctum L.", referenced to POWO). Watt (note 4), p. 443, heads his entry "O. sanctum, Linn." and gives "Syn.—O. monachorum, Linn., Mant., O. tenuiflorum, Linn., Sp. Pl.". The older 1753 name has priority under the botanical code. Our Research tab gives "Ocimum tenuiflorum, also called Ocimum sanctum". ↩
  20. Fanny Parks [Parkes], Wanderings of a Pilgrim, in Search of the Picturesque, vol. 2 (London: Pelham Richardson, 1850), ch. on Benares, pp. 437-438 (page read off the page image), https://archive.org/details/dli.pahar.0402 . Diary entry "7th" (of December 1844, the chapter beginning "1844, December 5th"): "Quitted Raj ghat early, and tracked slowly past Benares, stopping every now and then to take a sketch of those beautiful ghats" (tracking, towing a boat with ropes from the bank). Pp. 437-438: "on a small ghat, a little beyond the minarets, is a gigantic figure in black stone of Bhim Singh, a deified giant, of whom it is recorded that he built the fortress of Chunar in one day ... The giant is represented lying at full length on his back, his head, adorned with a sort of crown, is supported on raised masonry; at his right side is erected a small altar of mud, of conical form, bearing on its top a tulsi plant"; "a number of small ghats rising from the river, on each of which a similar conical tulsi altar was erected, and generally, at the side of each, the flag of a fakir was displayed from the end of a long thin bamboo. A man who appeared to be a mendicant fakir, came down to the river-side, carrying in one hand a long pole, and in the other one joint of a thick bamboo, which formed a vessel for holding water, and from this he poured some of the holy stream of the Ganges on the little shrub goddess the tulsi." The book is illustrated "with sketches from nature" (title page). ↩
  21. Wikipedia, "Fanny Parkes", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Parkes : "Fanny Parkes or Parks (née Frances Susanna Archer) (1794–1875) was a travel writer from Wales, known for her extensive journals about colonial India, where she lived for 24 years." The same article: "Parkes began living in Calcutta in 1822" and "Parkes lived in India between 1822 and 1846, with a break in England and Cape Town 1839–1844", so in December 1844 she had been back in India only a short time. ↩
  22. G. C. M. Birdwood, Catalogue of the Vegetable Productions of the Presidency of Bombay, 2nd edition (Bombay: Education Society's Press, Byculla, 1865), p. 64, "Ocimum sanctum. W. Purple-stalked Basil" (page read off the page images; numbers at the foot), https://archive.org/details/cataloguevegeta00birdgoog : "Sacred to Vishnoo, whose followers wear a necklace of its stalks and roots. In the Deccan villages the fair Brahminee may be seen every morning, after having ground the corn and performed her simple toilet, walking round and round the toolsee planted on a little altar before her husband's home, invoking the blessings of heaven on him and his children." Birdwood signs as Secretary and Curator of the Government Central Museum (title page). His preface, dated 30 October 1865, says the book is "a second edition of my Catalogue only in the sense of a republication, and not of revision or correction, of the first edition", and "at least three years behind the times", so the words date from the first edition, earlier in the 1860s. ↩
  23. W. Dymock, C. J. H. Warden and D. Hooper, Pharmacographia Indica, vol. 3 (London, Bombay and Calcutta, 1893; year read off the title page image, where the catalogue says 1890), "Ocimum sanctum", pp. 87-88, https://archive.org/details/b2129737x_0003 : "When a Hindu dies, his head is washed with water in which are placed Tulasi leaves and Sesamum seeds, and a sprig of the plant is placed upon his breast as a viaticum"; "The wretch who destroys the plant is abhorred of Vishnu, and can never hope for any prosperity; it may only be plucked for religious or medicinal use and when offering the following prayer:—'Mother Tulasi, who brings joy to the heart of Govindas, I gather thee for the worship of Narayana; without thee, O blessed one, every work is vain'"; "The connection between the Tulasi and the Amrita is indicated by the suspension over the plant of a dropping pot of water in the month Vaisakh"; "in Calcutta, even in European compounds, there is hardly a hut occupied by a Darwan or Ooriya bearer without a pot of Tulsi close to the door. Frequently in the evenings a light is kept burning near the plant." A darwan is a doorkeeper. The volume's opening notice says the senior author, Dymock, died "on the 30th April 1892", before it appeared. ↩
  24. T. R. Krishnamurthy, "Some pharmacological actions of an extract of Ocimum sanctum; preliminary observations", Indian Journal of Psychology 3 (1959): 92-100, PubMed 13672648, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13672648/ (no abstract). The oldest record on the plant in a PubMed search on 9 November 2026 for "(Ocimum sanctum OR Ocimum tenuiflorum OR tulsi OR "holy basil" OR Ocimum) AND 1900:1966[dp]" (18 records; the earlier ones are on other basils or are obituaries of men named Basil). ↩
  25. K. P. Bhargava and N. Singh, "Anti-stress activity of Ocimum sanctum Linn.", Indian Journal of Medical Research 73 (1981): 443-451, PubMed 7275241, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7275241/ (no abstract; indexed for mice and rats). ↩
  26. P. Sen, P. C. Maiti, S. Puri, A. Ray, N. A. Audulov and A. V. Valdman, "Mechanism of anti-stress activity of Ocimum sanctum Linn, eugenol and Tinospora malabarica in experimental animals", Indian Journal of Experimental Biology 30 (1992): 592-596, PubMed 1459632, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1459632/ , first author at the Department of Pharmacology, University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi: "Effects of restraint stress (RS) and its modulation by O. sanctum (Os), eugenol and T. malabarica (Tm) were evaluated ... in rats"; "Os, eugenol or Tm pretreatment"; "their modulation by the adaptogens". ↩
  27. Wikipedia, "Tulasi in Hinduism", read 9 November 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulasi_in_Hinduism : "Tulasi has been used for its therapeutic properties since circa 5000–4000 BCE. In the Rig Veda, Tulasi is mentioned and that is generally dated around to 1500 BCE", both cited to "Chauhan, Dr. Meenakshi (2019). 'Tulsi, Holy Basil (Ocimum Sanctum)'. Planet Ayurveda". The same article quotes a second version, "Tulasi has been used in India for around 5000 years", cited to "Prakash, S. & Gupta, N. (2011)", Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research, and to "Narendra Singh, Mahendra Kumar Mishra & Rajeshwar Singh (2014). 'Tulsi: The Mother Medicine of Nature'", International Journal of Herbal Medicine, both tagged "full citation needed". We could not find either paper. A book called Tulsi: The Mother Medicine of Nature, by N. Singh, Y. Hoette and R. Miller (2nd ed., Lucknow: International Institute of Herbal Medicine, 2010), is cited in M. M. Cohen, "Tulsi - Ocimum sanctum: A herb for all reasons", Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine 5 (2014): 251-259, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4296439/ . We did not read the book. ↩
  28. Meenakshi Chauhan, "Tulsi, Holy Basil (Ocimum Sanctum)", Planet Ayurveda, "Published on: April 23, 2019", read 9 November 2026, https://www.planetayurveda.com/library/tulsi-ocimum-sanctum/ : "It is used for its therapeutic properties since 4000 to 5000 B.C. in rigveda, its reference is present that is in 3500 to 1600 B.C old." The page gives no source for the line and sells Ayurvedic products. Its page data say "dateModified" 2025-12-04, so the wording we read may not be the 2019 wording; Wikipedia's citation of it (note 27) was "Accessed 27 September 2023". The Wayback Machine lists a capture of 28 July 2019, which we could not open from here. ↩
  29. Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā, ed. Th. Aufrecht, GRETIL e-text, https://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/sa_Rgveda-edAufrecht.xml . Our search on 9 November 2026 of the whole text (all ten maṇḍalas) for any word beginning "tul" found none, and no word "surasa" or "surasā" occurs (the nearest strings are asurasya and śūrasāti). The same search of the Paippalāda Atharvaveda (GRETIL) found no "tulas". Date of the Rigveda: Wikipedia, "Rigveda", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda , gives "c. 1500–1000 BCE". ↩
  30. M. Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1899), p. 451, "tulasī", https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWScan/2020/web/webtc/indexcaller.php : "holy basil (small shrub venerated by Vaiṣṇavas; commonly Tulsī), BhP.; VāyuP. & PadmaP. (produced from the ocean when churned), BrahmaP. (produced from the hair of the goddess Tulasī)". All four sources are Purāṇas. ↩
  31. Agniveśa and Caraka, Carakasaṃhitā, Sūtrasthāna 27.169, GRETIL e-text of the Trikamji edition (data entry Oliver Hellwig), https://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/sa_agniveza-carakasaMhitA-parts-comm.xml : "hikkākāsaviṣaśvāsapārśvaśūlavināśanaḥ / pittakṛtkaphavātaghnaḥ surasaḥ pūtigandhahā" (car_1,27.169), in the chapter on foods, among the greens. Pūtigandhahā, "destroyer of foul smell", our translation; the verse's other uses are left out of the story. Date: Wikipedia, "Charaka Samhita", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charaka_Samhita : "Meulenbeld's History of Indian Medical Literature dates it to be between the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, with Charaka's compilation likely between 100 BCE and 200 CE", and the surviving text has a 6th-century revision by Dṛḍhabala. ↩
  32. P. Prakash and N. Gupta, "Therapeutic uses of Ocimum sanctum Linn (Tulsi) with a note on eugenol and its pharmacological actions: a short review", Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology 49 (2005): 125-131, PubMed 16170979, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16170979/ , full text https://ijpp.com/IJPP%20archives/2005_49_2/125-131.pdf , authors at the "Department of Biochemistry, Seema Dental College & Hospital, Barrage Road, Rishikesh". The abstract is on p. 125; the introduction on p. 126 opens "Plants are one of the most important sources of medicines" and its second paragraph says: "The medicinal use of plants is very old. The writings indicate that therapeutic use of plants is as old as 4000–5000 B.C. and Chinese used first the natural herbal preparations as medicines. In India, however, earliest references of use of plants as medicine appear in Rigveda which is said to be written between 3500–1600 B.C." The paragraph's only citation, (9), comes after the next sentence, on Ayurveda, and is to N. N. Sirkar, "Pharmacological basis of Ayurvedic therapeutics", in C. K. Atal and B. M. Kapoor (eds), Cultivation and utilization of medicinal plants (CSIR, 1989), which we did not read. ↩
  33. N. Bano, A. Ahmed, M. Tanveer, G. M. Khan and M. T. Ansari, "Pharmacological Evaluation of Ocimum sanctum", Journal of Bioequivalence & Bioavailability 9 (2017): 387-392, https://doi.org/10.4172/jbb.1000330 , authors at the Departments of Pharmacy of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, and Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad (the corresponding author, A. Ahmed), Pakistan. P. 387: "From literature, it is known that Tulsi has been utilized therapeutically since 400-500 BC. Earliest references of Tulsi were found in Rigveda (3500-1600 BC). Therapeutically it is used in anti-cancer, anti-oxidant [7], anti-diabetic [8], radiations [9], infertility and for many other major and minor diseases [10]", where reference 10 is Prakash and Gupta 2005 (note 32). It is labelled "Review Article". A 2022 review (World Journal of Pharmaceutical Research 11(3): 573-580) repeats the two sentences word for word. ↩
  34. Bharati Pawaskar, "Women of different faiths uphold Tulsi Vivah traditions in Goa", The Goan, 1 November 2025, https://www.thegoan.net/tg-life-sunday/women-of-different-faiths-uphold-tulsi-vivah-traditions-in-goa/138383.html : "Tulsi Vivah (Tulshi Lagn) ... This year, it falls on November 2"; "families usually paint their Tulsi Vrindavan a few days before the ceremony. But this year, with heavy rains continuing into the last week of October, many found it difficult to do so. Tina Govekar managed to paint hers during a short break in the rain. 'I enjoy painting, and since my husband and son were busy this year, I did it myself. I even placed an umbrella over the Vrindavan to protect it from rain until the paint dried,' shares Tina, who was born into a Christian family before marrying advocate Prakash Govekar from Chopde, North Goa"; "Married into the Govekar family for 33 years, Tina has devotedly followed all family traditions"; Neeta Nanda Honavarkar of Vasco, "born Christian (Antoinette Rodrigues)": "We offer the Tulsi plant a white cloth dipped in turmeric water, decorate it with marigold flowers and mango leaves"; "Haldi ceremony, similar to what happens before a wedding"; "the Tulsi plant, which is dressed in red"; "Prasad of Chirmulyo and sugarcane is shared among all"; an island near Vasco, "30 minutes by boat": "The island has both a Tulsi Vrindavan and a Cross side by side. On the morning of Tulsi Vivah, Hindus perform the ritual, while Christians hold Mass at the Cross"; "In Chopde, the temple priest (Bhatji) visits around 12 homes to perform puja after the temple ceremony"; "'The Bhatji has asked everyone to keep umbrellas ready just in case,' Tina adds"; Neeta, "Married for 38 years, ... has been celebrating Tulsi Vivah since her marriage"; "In the morning, we hold the Haldi ceremony, similar to what happens before a wedding"; "The Navy now controls the island". Tulsi Lagn is "the ceremonial marriage of the holy Tulsi plant to Lord Vishnu". The article was published the day before the wedding, so the story gives Neeta's rites as her custom, not as what she did that year. ↩
  35. Nooroots Ingredient Atlas, holy basil, Research tab, /pages/holy-basil-research : "Studied mostly as a mouthwash or gel for the mouth and gums, and as an extract for stress." ↩
  36. M. Jamshidi and M. M. Cohen, "The Clinical Efficacy and Safety of Tulsi in Humans: A Systematic Review of the Literature", Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2017): 9217567, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5376420/ : tulsi "is indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and been used within Ayurvedic medicine more than 3000 years", with no source given for the figure. ↩