Tulsi Vivah

Tulsi Vivah is the annual ceremonial wedding of the tulsi plant (holy basil) to Vishnu’s shaligrama — the Kartik-season rite that opens the Hindu wedding year, dramatizing the legend of Vrinda the faithful wife.

Overview

Observed on Ekadashi to Purnima of Kartik (November); the legend: Vrinda (Tulsi), wife of the demon Jalandhara, whose fidelity protected him; Vishnu’s disguise as her husband broke the chastity-shield, the demon fell, and Vrinda’s curse made Vishnu the shaligrama — her transformed self the tulsi, married to him annually in atonement-union.

Ritual

The tulsi-vrindavana (the plant’s pedestal-temple) decorated as a bride; the full wedding liturgy (the kanyadaan of the plant, the mangalsutra, the pheras around the fire — often the whole saptapadi); the prasad distribution and the feast that opens the year’s wedding season (marriages resume after Chaturmas’s suspension).

Significance

The theology of the goddess-wife’s fidelity (the pativrata-power that even gods must honor); the plant-sacredness (tulsi as Vishnu’s consort, the daily puja-plant of every courtyard); the seasonal calendar’s hinge (the month of weddings opening).

Verification notes

• The legend and rite are documented in the Puranic and living tradition.
• Audited against Wikipedia (September 2026).