The Palâsa.
The Palâsa or Dhâk is sacred, partly on account of its use in producing the sacred fire, and partly because its orange blossoms are used to dye the coloured dust and water thrown about at the Holî festival. It is supposed to be in some way connected with the Soma, and by one account was produced from the feather of the falcon imbued with the Soma. Its trifoliate leaves represent the trident, or the three great gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, or birth, life, and death. The leaves are used to form the platters employed at various feasts and religious rites; the wood in the Yûpa, or sacrificial pole, and in the funeral pyre.
In one respect it resembles the rowan, which is also a sacred tree, but why this is so has been much debated. “Possibly the inaccessible rocks on which the tree is not unfrequently found to grow and the conspicuous colour of its berries may have counted for something, but this falls decidedly short of a solution of the question. One kind of answer that would meet the case, provided it be countenanced by facts, may be briefly indicated, namely, that the berries of the rowan were used in some early period in the brewing of an intoxicating drink, or better still, of the first intoxicating drink known to the Teuto-Aryan Celts.”62 The connection between the Palâsa and the Soma perhaps indicates that this may have been the case. It was again a Vedic custom to drive the cows from their calves by striking them with a rod of a Palâsa tree. In Yorkshire it used to be the custom for “farmers to have whip-stocks of rowan tree wood, and it was held that thus supplied, they were safe against having their draught fixed, or their horses made restive by a witch. If ever a draught came to a standstill, then the nearest witchwood tree was resorted to, and a stick cut to flog the horses on with, to the discomfiture of the malevolent witch who had caused the stoppage.” In some parts of Scotland the milkmaid carries a switch of the magical rowan to expel the demon which sometimes enters the cow; and in Germany, striking the cow with this magical wand is believed to render her fertile.63