Page:Biographical Sketches of Dekkan Poets.djvu/186

The Jotispati Plant, is called Swarnalata, in Scanscrit Dictionaries, and flourishes in the monsoon, its fruit is red, and of a small size, grows in bunches, and when ripe bursts, and rather better to the taste; this shrub never blossoms, but during the rainy season and may be found in many parts of the Peninsula, and thrives excellently in the Mysore country. There is a treatise called Jotishpati Kalpa, in which is given the method to extract the oil from the seeds, which is either to lay them on the blade of a sword and expose them to the rays of the sun in the months of April and May; or by the action of heat in a retort; this oil is said to be fit for culinary purposes, and to possess the excellent quality of clearing the head and brightening the genius. At the courts and colleges of Mysore, Tanjore, Kanchi, Benares, &c. a great many pundits make use of this oil, to remove dullness from their pupils.