Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s9.37

v1.c3.s9.37

Oṣadhi.—Roughly speaking, the vegetable world is divided in Vedic literature¹ between Oṣadhi or Virudh ‘plants’ and Vana or Vṛkṣa ‘trees.’ Oṣadhi is employed in opposition to Vīrudh to denote plants as possessing a healing power or some other quality useful to men, while Vīrudh is rather a generic term for minor vegetable growths, but sometimes,² when occurring beside Oṣadhi, signifies those plants which do not possess medicinal properties.