Bael Sherbet:
India's Soothing Summer Drink
Summer
scorches but compensates with many savoury fruits – mango, watermelon, muskmelon,
lychee, and the humble bael; the last one is not a table fruit and demands a
little work before it can be savoured. Bael fruit has much nutritional and
medicinal value.[i]
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Recently, I bought
from Bittan Market a big ripe bael for eighty rupees. Broke the shell, scooped
out the soft kernel with a spoon, soaked it in a bowl with two glasses of
water. After a while, kneaded the stuff, used a sieve to separate the seeds,
rind, strings, and collected the thick pulp, enough to make eight glasses of sherbet.
Put a few spoons of pulp in a glass, added a little more water, black salt,
ground pepper, roasted ground jeera, and crushed cardamoms. No sugar, jaggery,
or honey; best to savour the gift of nature without extra sugar. Put it in deep
freezer for 15 mins. Garnished it with pudina leaves from my terrace pot.
Result: a cooling, refreshing, delicious summer drink with loads of health benefits.
Whenever I see
bael, it brings in a rush of memories of childhood in my little village in
western Odisha where upon a private fallow land across our school stood a
well-grown tree that bore a luxuriant crop every year, and was available to all
since the land-owner took only a few and left the remaining fruits for others.
We saw the green fruits grow bigger and turn yellow with patches of brown as
they ripened soaking in the hot sun and cooking the pulp ever so slowly to
perfection, a shining golden hue with an appetising aroma and the taste of
nature-packed herbal candy.
My
classmates - Gurudev Kumar, Shankarshan Majhi, and Mahadev Podh – all a few
years older than me and more knowledgeable about matters seldom waited for the
fruit to ripen and drop. They fetched a long bamboo pole with a hook and yanked
off a few mature ones, kindled a fire and roasted the fruits. When done, the fruits
burst like crackers and the roasted pulp was scooped out with a piece of the shell.
It was amazingly delicious.
Much, much
later did I learn that Ayurveda has been using since ancient times every part
of the bael tree as medicine; the fruit to treat contrarian ailments – the unripe
fruit for diarrhoea and dysentery, and the ripe fruit for constipation.
But who were
the anonymous master strategists who smartly assigned ‘sacred’ status to the
bael tree, declaring it Lord Shiva’s favourite to ensure well-being of the
devotees and immortality for this medicinal tree?** The same wise masters who
elevated Tulasi, a humble wild grass (‘Tulsi Tulsi sab kahen Tulsi van ka ghas,
ho gayee kirpa Ram ki ban gaya Tulsidas’) to a goddess, to be revered in every
house and worshipped thrice daily (tri-sandhya)? Who ordained that Lakshmi is
pleased when offered the majestic lotus, the flower available only if abundant,
healthy ponds and lakes are nurtured?
But they did
not rest after such smart sacred alignment. They composed hymns in praise of
these precious trees and plants – Bilvastakam, Bilva Upanishad, Tulasi Stotram,
Tulasi Upanishad, Padma Purana (the lotus emerged from the navel of Lord Vishnu),
and many others.
Bilvastakam*
Bilvastakam
(Praise of Bilva Tree in Eight Stanzas), a Sanskrit stotra, is unique in many
respects. It is not in praise of Shiva, but a paean to the sacred bilva tree. It recommends for the devotee a very simple,
zero-cost method of worshipping Shiva.
Aegle
marmelos, commonly known as bael, bil, stone apple, wood apple is a species of
tree native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
What does
the stotra say in praise of the tree?
In the
sacred Bilva tree resides the Trinity – Brahma in its root, Vishnu at its
centre (trunk), and Shiva at the top; it is born with Lakshmi’s blessings
(literally, a produce of Mother Earth), and is dear to Shiva.
Mere darshan
(sighting) and/or sparsh (touching) of this sacred tree extinguishes all sins,
and offering a stem with three bilva leaves (bael leaves are trifoliate) to
Shiva extinguishes even the most heinous sins.
An offering
of a bael stem with three leaves - symbolising the three gunas that constitute
the universe (Satva, Rajas, and Tamas), the three-eyed Lord Shiva, and his
trishul (trident) with three spear-heads – extinguishes the sins of three
lives, the past, the present, and the future.
Religious
merit acquired through offering a stem of bael leaves to Shiva is equivalent to
· gifting Shaligram to numerous Vipras
(brahmins), or the great merit derived from performing Soma Yagya;
· gifting a thousand Dantikoti (tusker
elephants), a hundred Vajapeya (a special yagya), and a million Kanya-dana (offering
the hands of a daughter in marriage, considered a maha-dana, or a great gift);
· permanent residence in Kashi kshetra with
daily darshan of Kala Bhairaba, or darshan of Madhava (Vishnu) at Prayag.
Lastly, the
stotra mentions, as required by convention, the phalashruti or the benefits
that accrue from recitation of this stotra. Recitation of this sacred Bilvastaka
before Shiva extinguishes all sins, and the devotee is transported to Shiva
Loka.
Adi Shakara,
who composed this stotra was a gifted poet, and the use of hyperbole as a
poetic device in this composition was deliberate. The poet’s intent is to assure
the devout that piety is not earned through elaborate rituals (fasts, vratas,
yagyas), or by giving expensive gifts to the gods or to the priests and
brahmins. Simple and sincere devotion suffices to receive divine benediction.
***
*Some
sources (Shlokam.org, sanskritdocuments.org) attribute Bilvastakam to Adi
Shankaracharya; but others (Shankaracharya.org, Shri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham)
do not list this stotra as one composed by the Saint-Poet. Also, there are
different versions of this stotra, one with eight stanzas which makes it an
ashtakam, and another with 14 stanzas!
Renditions of
this stotra by Madhavi Madhukar Jha, Ramesh Bhai Ojha, and others are available
in You Tube.
**Bael tree is also called Kalpavriksha, and its fruit Sriphal. Some believe that the 'Sri' in SriShailam,one of the Dvadasha Jyotirlingas, refers to the abundance of bael trees on the mountain.
[i] A
summary of the many nutritional and medicinal values of bael is available at: Production_Protection_and_Processing_of_Bael.pdf
(icar.gov.in)
