Saudi Journal of Medicine (SJM)
Volume-11 | | Issue-09 | 349-352
Review Article
Betel Leaf- A Social/Natural Science Tool & Homoeopathy
Tridibesh Tripathy, Byomakesh Tripathy, Shankar Das, Rakesh Dwivedi, Anjali Mishra, Hareem Nomani, Anjali Tripathy, Sanskriti Tripathy
Published : Sept. 9, 2026
Abstract
The plant arrived in India by sea from distant land. It was not mentioned in any religious scriptures. It emerged on the wall of a temple in Karnataka. After that it became a symbol of the trinity. It also became a vehicle for goddess Lakshmi & God Yama eventually. It became a metaphor/grammar for human relations. That’s how India absorbs the foreign completely while forgetting the memory of the absorption. It is the betel leaf that the paragraph & the article refers to. In marriages especially in Eastern India, betel leaf is hold over fire for a few seconds & put on the cheeks of the bride & groom as a blessing for the couple. To protect the betel vines in Odisha state, people did not allow the POSCO steel company of South Korea to set up a steel plant in eastern Odisha. This was to ensure that the land on which the betel vines are grown is not given for setting up the steel plant. The incident reminds us that the betel leaf is so much inter-wined in the lives of Indians. It is very hard to find a place in India that does not have a paan/betel leaf shop. The current article blends the leaf with its various associated modalities & finally links the homoeopathic system of medicine to the leaf & its accompaniments. It discusses the homoeopathic medicines prepared from all these accompaniments. Homoeopathy was foreign to India as it came from Germany where as betel leaf was also foreign to India as it came from Indonesia & Malayasia. Currently both are part of the very essence of the Indian culture.