Also known as nimba, the neem (Azidirachta indica) is a tall, evergreen tree. It has small, bright green leaves. The fruit, eaten by birds, turns from raw green to ripe yellow. The neem is cherished as much for its shade as for its medicinal properties.
The leaves have insecticidal and antiseptic properties. In rural India, a neem twig is considered a very effective toothbrush, for while its fibres clean, its juice works both as a mouth freshner and a germ-killing dentrifice. Drinking water boiled with neem leaves is said to purify the blood and heal a skin afflicted with measles and chicken-pox sores.
Dried neem leaves are packed with wool and silk, to keep away moths and other insects.
The neem once sheltered Surya from demons, according to the Brahma Purana and the Padma Purana. It is also considered sacred because the six goddesses who regulate disease are believed to live in it. These goddesses are said to infect people as a punishment for misconduct. During the rains, when most epidemics occur, women pray to the neem and make offerings at its base. On the first day of Chaitra, it is considered essential to worship the neem and eat its leaves, mixed with pepper and sugar, as a safeguard from fever. The presence of these goddesses makes the neem a test of truth, for those who utter falsehoods beneath a neem are believed to fall violently ill.
The neem is also sacred to Manasadevi, queen of the serpents, who protects people from snakebite and so, is offered neem leaves at her altars. It is further believed that if a person lives on food cooked on a fire of neem wood, he will be immune to snake venom.
To protect against any lingering infection, the Puranas urge that neem leaves are chewed after attending a funeral and should be strewn as an antiseptic barrier on the threshold of a house where a death has occurred. This blanket rule was actually devised to protect mourners in the days when people died in epidemics. As a further tribute to the healing powers of the neem, it is also believed that those possessed by evil spirits should be made to inhale the smoke of burnt neem leaves, to be exorcised.