Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.15.19 explains the special position of the Tulasi plant: “Although there are numerous flowering plants full of transcendental fragrance in the spiritual realm, they are aware that Tulasi is given special preference by the Lord, who garlands Himself with Tulasi leaves.”
In her form as a plant, Tulasi always stays at the Lord’s feet and around His neck. (Her leaves and flowers decorate His feet and are strung into garlands to be worn around His neck.) The Vedic scriptures say, “Krishna gives Himself to a devotee who offers Him merely a Tulasi leaf and a palmful of water.” www.krishna.com
I bow down to the Tulasi, at whose base are all the holy places, at whose top reside all the deities, and in whose middle are all the Vedas. If you plant nine or eleven Tulasi trees in your garden the air will be pure within a wide radius, and bacteria-free.
From prehistoric times the earliest inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent held plants in great reverence. Nature was worshipped by India’s primitive tribes, just as she was worshipped by primitive peoples all over the world. Hindu mythology says that the God of Death, Yama, himself gives way to this most ‘holy’ of India’s plants – the sacred Tulasi. However, India is unique in that it has maintained this reverence right up to the present day. As early as 3000 BC, worship of actual plants was turning into reverence for Nature as a source of medicine. Plants were being regarded less as simply ‘holy’ in themselves than as the home of divine spirits with powers beneficial to mankind. By the time Ayurveda became an established science, these beneficial plants had long been acknowledged in the vast medicinal pharmacopoeia contained in plants. Tulasi, which was once worshipped as a plant with ‘magical powers’, was analysed by the Ayurvedic physicians for its physical properties. Although this dispelled much of the superstition connected with Tulasi and other plants, it did not diminish the reverence in which plants were held by Ayurveda. Tulasi is known as the Mother of Ayurveda.