The Magnificent Coconut

When I was a young girl, we came to live in Mumbai after my father was transferred for work there. I was very excited to travel to and live in the amazing city I had heard so much about, and thanked God for this dream come true. In school and college I had read that Mumbai had an ocean and on the edges of the ocean were many beautiful and graceful coconut trees.

I had seen coconuts many times at home, but never a coconut on a coconut tree.

Soon we arrived in Mumbai and I saw my very first real life coconut tree. They are such tall trees with leaves only on the top of the tree, and green coconuts growing in bunches under the leaves. The coconut tree, a palm, is one of the most useful trees in the world and often referred to as the ‘tree of life’. It is used for food, cosmetics, folk medicine and building material among other uses.

I was very curious to find more out about this beautiful tree. I found many stories with coconuts prominently mentioned, and read about so many uses of the tree and the nut. The coconut tree is a member of the palm family. The name comes from the old Portuguese and Spanish word coco meaning head or skull. When you take the husk off the dry coconuts, you can see three spots on the coconuts like eyes and a nose, and the coconut looks like a face These trees grow mostly on the coast, where the air is salty because of the ocean or the sea.

Cultural and historical significance

The coconut also has both cultural as well as religious significance in certain societies, particularly the Hindu society. Literary evidence from the epic Ramayana indicates that the coconut was present in India at that time, and coconuts are even mentioned in the ‘1001 Stories of Sinbad the Sailor’ books. So coconuts have been around for a long many years.

A large amount of research has been done to find out where the coconut really originated. Different researchers have found different places where they could have originated. There are currently two major ideas about the origin of the cocos or coconuts, one in the Indo Pacific islands, and another in South America.

Hindu rituals have a lot of symbolic importance for the coconut. For example, breaking a coconut before a deity in the temple means breaking one’s ego. Hindus believe that when you come to pray to God you must surrender before God. Your mind must have only positive and good thoughts, and must be clean and white like coconut flesh; they believe that the water in the coconut is a nectar of divine knowledge.

A versatile tree

The coconut tree is also called Kalpavriksha, the tree that fulfils every wish. The coconut fruit is also called ShriPhal fruit of wealth in Hindu culture. Fresh coconut is very useful for food, drink, cooking, and medicinal purposes. Coconut oil is also used in cosmetics. The discarded shell is used for craft material, toys, or fuel during Puja (prayer rituals). The husk is very efficient as a scrubber for cleaning purposes. It is used to make rope. Leaves are used as building material in rural areas for fencing and roofing. They are also used for making brooms.

I remember my mother asking the grocer to send some coconuts to our house at the beginning of every month. Some of them were cut into two pieces and dried, and some were fully dried with a brown colour husk on them. She would say the half ones were for cooking and the full ones were for puja or offering at the temple. I was small then and did not pay much attention, but after seeing the green coconuts in Mumbai I had to find out more about them.

A coconut plays a very important role in Indian community life . The coconut, or Narial in Hindi, is used on all religious occasions be it a birth, marriage, buying of a new house or car, or any happy occasion.

According to a myth in ancient times all the sages used to sacrifice goats in order to ward off evil forces during their religious rituals. As time passed, this practice of animal sacrifice became obsolete and the rituals became peaceful and nonviolent. In Hinduism in ancient times there was a practice of Narabali offering the head of a human to the Hindu god. Sage Adi Shankaracharya condemned this ritual and advised poeple to replace the human head with a coconut. The coconut replaced the sacrifice and ever since the coconut which is also called Shrifal in Hindu society became more popular and an ever present nut in Hindu rituals.

The Hindus have also dedicated an entire day to the Coconut; ‘Narali Purnima’ in the month of Shravan in the Hindu calendar is celebrated at the very beginning of the monsoon along the western coastline of India. The fishermen offer thousands of coconuts to the sea before setting out in their boats for fishing operations. The offering of the coconut is their prayer for safe sailing and prosperity.

A legend behind how the coconut came to be

According to one legend, the coconut tree was created by Rishi Vishwamitra to thank his friend King Satyavrata. Once Rishi Vishwamitra left his Ashram (hindu monastery) to do penance and did not return to his ashram for a very long time. In his absence, all his family, his students, his animals and his farm went hungry. Even his people were suffering from hunger and thirst. In that time his friend king Satyavrata took charge and looked after and took on all of Vishwamitra’s duties.

When the Rishi found out about this upon his return, he was very pleased with King Satyavrata so offered him a boon. The King said that he wanted to go to Heaven with his mortal body. Sage Vishwamitra agreed and made a path to heaven for the King and the King travelled down this path when he died.

When he reached the entrance to heaven, Lord Indra would not let in through and pushed him back down to earth. Satyavrata told the sage what had happened and the sage became very angry. Her held a discussion with the Gods and they all agreed to create a separate Heaven for the king. This new heaven was in between heaven and earth. This way, everybody was happy in their own place; Indra in heaven, Satyavrata in the middle, and Vishwamitra on earth. However, now the sage was worried about the king falling on earth, so Vishwamitra put up a very long pole from earth to heaven to support the hanging king Satyavrata. It is said that after a long time this pole became a tree and the king's head became a coconut on the top of the tree. Even today, the coconut tree is very tall and the king who became a coconut remains very high on the tree.

The magnificent coconut

Having researched this magnificent coconut tree, I am absolutely in love with it. Whenever I am in Mumbai I have a green coconut each day I can get my hands on one. So lucky are the dwellers of Mumbai, that every town has a good number of coconut sellers ready to sell them a fresh delicious green coconut with sweet healthy water and delicious coconut cream.