Most flower with good fragrance are white color. Jasmine is among them with special heavy fragrance. Jasmine in Khmer we call Malis or Pka Malis. There are only two common species of Jasmine in Cambodia, one with single layer we call it Malis Lea (ម្លិះលា) and another one with multi-layered we call it Malis Ruot (ម្លិះរួត). The most popular one is Malis Lea which people grow it as farms and used it in many beneficial ways of daily living. So the following so called Jasmine that reminding in this article is about Malis Lea.
The white color is symbolize the purity, virginity. Beside white color, Jasmine has a heavily but pleasure fragrant. It was chosen to be worshiping flower, just like lotus, Cambodia people need it in all the Buddhist ceremonies. Every time people go for praying in pagoda or any shrine of local saint, beside fruits, there would be Jasmine. You might see some braids of Jasmine were put in the hand or any part of the body of the Buddha statues. Jasmine is used as perfume to make good fragrant of holy water since ancient time and only Jasmine till the present day. Buddhist monk scatter Jasmine flower to the prayers for good blessing in the regular worship at home. Every holy days of the Luna month, people would have Jasmine in the shrine of their house. At least they would have a stick of Jasmines and a hand of banana for their Chum Neang Ptas (God of the house).
