March 01, 2026
KUSA GRASS
The sacred Vedic herb Kusa (Poa cynosuroides) is known in the Sanscrit writings as the Ornament of the Sacrifice, the Pure Herb, the Purifier, &c. With its long pointed leaves, the sacred beverages are purified, the altar is covered, and the sacrificing priest is furnished with a natural carpet. According to the Vedas, the sacrifices offered in the Hindu temples of the Indian Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, consisted of a fire of fragrant woods lighted at each of the cardinal points. The flames were fed now and again with consecrated ointment, and around the fire was scattered the sacred herb Kusa. Thus, in the drama of ‘Sakuntalâ,’ written by Kâlidâsa two thousand years ago, we find that Kanva, the father of the heroine (who is the chief of the hermits), offers one of these sacrifices, and exclaims:—
In those times it was apparently considered no sin to apply the sacred grass to private purposes, for one of Sakuntalâ’s handmaids compounds perfumes and unguents with consecrated paste and the Kusa-grass, to anoint the limbs of her mistress, previous to her nuptials. In the Vedas, the Kusa-grass, or Darbha, is often invoked as a god. According to the Atharvaveda, it is immortal, it never ages, it destroys enemies, and Indra, the god of thunder, employs it as his weapon.
The Vedic rituals contain directions for the employment of Kusa-grass for various mystic purposes. To cleanse butter, the priest held a small stalk of the sacred Grass, without nodes, in each hand, and, turning towards the east, he invoked Savitar, Vasu, and the rays of the sun. At the new moon, and at the full moon, they bound and fastened together the sacrificial wood and the Kusa-grass. In the third year of its age, it was customary for a Hindu child to be brought by its parents to the priest, that its hair might be cut. Then the father, placed to the south of the mother, held in his hand twenty-one stalks of Kusa-grass, which symbolised the twenty-one winds, and an invocation was made to Vâyu, the god of the winds. The father, or, in his absence, a Brahman, took three stalks at a time, and inserted them in the child’s hair seven times, the points turned towards the infant’s body; at the same time devoutly murmuring, “May the herb protect thee!” According to the Vedas, a house ought to be erected in a locality where the Kusa-grass abounds; the foundations are sprinkled with it, and care is taken to extirpate all thorny plants. When reading the sacred books, the devout Hindu should be seated either on the ground or on a flooring strewn with Kusa-grass, upon which once rested Brahma himself. It was customary, upon leaving a seminary, for the Vedic student to take, among other things, by way of memento, and as a presage of good fortune, a few blades of Kusa-grass. Anchorites employed the sacred Grass as a covering to their nudity, and it was also used as a purification in funeral rites. In the Buddhist ritual, the Vedic Kusa appears under the name of Barhis, and serves as a kind of carpet, on which come Agni and all the gods to seat themselves. Of such importance is the sacred Grass considered, that the name Barhis is sometimes even employed to signify in a general manner the sacrifice itself.