• Pandanus Homepage • Database of Plants • Publications • Sanskrit E-texts • Seminar of Indian Studies •

Saraca asoca (Roxb.) De Wilde details in Pandanus database of Indian plant names

Back to the list of plant names

Latin name	Saraca asoca (Roxb.) De Wilde
Family	Leguminosae
Identified with (Lat)	Saraca indica L.
Identified with (Skt)	aśoka
Identified with (Hin)	aśok
Identified with (Tam)	acōkam
Identified with (Mal)	aśōkam
Identified with (Eng)	Ashoka
Botanical info	An evergreen tree growing throughout India in evergreen forests up to 750 m, leaves pinnate, 30 - 60 cm long, flowers orange-yellow in dense corymbs, very fragrant, fruits flat black pods, leathery, compressed, seeds 4 - 8 per pod, ellipsoid, cut surface of the bark turns reddish on exposure to air
Search occurrence	aśoka, in the Pandanus database of Sanskrit e-texts
See plant's image	Saraca asoca (Roxb.) De Wilde in Google image search
Encyclopedias & Dictionaries	Monier-Williams: A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (p. 113) aśoka 1, mf(ā)n. (1. śuc), not causing sorrowN., Lalit.; not feeling sorrow Nalod.; m. the tree Jonesia Asoka Roxb. (a tree of moderate size belonging to the leguminous class with magnificent red flowers), MBh. &c.; N. of a minister of king Daśaratha, R. i, 7, 3; of a well-known king (in Pāṭaliputra), MBh., Buddh. &c.; (ā), f. N. of a medicinal plant, L.; a female name, (g. śubhrādi q.v.); N. of one of the female deities of the Jainas, L.; (am) n. the blossom of the Aśoka plant Vikr., (cf., Pāṇ. 4-3, 166 Siddh.); quicksilver, L. Tamil Lexicon, University of Madras (p. 35) acōkam: 1. Freedom from sorrow; 2. Asōka tree, m. tr., Saraca indica; 3. Indian mast-tree; 4. Arjan

(c) 1998-2009 Seminar of Indian Studies, Institute of South and Central Asia, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. Development of this database of Indian plant names was made possible by the generous funding of the Grant Agency of Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.