Vrikshayurveda: Ancient Indian Plant Science

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Since the evolution of unicellular organisms, the skill of eating for survival has reached different levels, contributing to a happier, healthier, and more peaceful existence for both flora and fauna. In this process, scientific principles have been applied. In the Indian context, the science of human health is known as Ayurveda. The Sanskrit word Ayur means life, and Veda means knowledge or science. Thus, Ayurveda refers to the science of health or the science of life.

The Sanskrit word for tree is Vriksha. When combined with Ayurveda, the term becomes Vrikshayurveda, which translates to the science of tree life. Plants, which serve as a major source of food and medicine for humans, were studied using the principles of Ayurveda, and these findings were recorded as Vrikshayurveda.

This book aims to encourage readers to think and act courageously in finding new avenues to create a happy, healthy, and peaceful life for both humans and plants, so that plants, in turn, can provide the same benefits to mankind, carrying forward the legacy of our ancestors. At the same time, readers must keep in mind that the knowledge passed down from our ancestors is time-tested, truly scientific, and unbiased. In this regard, M. J. Filliozat, Professor at the Collège de France, states in the Journal of World History that:

"Research in ancient India led very early to the development of theories which, although ahead of their time, were nevertheless logical systems of thought about the structure of reality, that is to say, of science."

His observations specifically refer to astronomy and physiology as discussed in texts dating between 1500 BC and 500 BC. This statement is also applicable to Vrikshayurveda, as both astronomy and plant physiology are important components of it.

Further research based on the principles of Vrikshayurveda is essential because, if the future of mankind is organic, then its foundation lies in Vrikshayurveda.

Dr. (Prof) Avinash Khaire graduated in Geography and completed his master's degree in Agricultural Geography from the University of Mumbai with a dissertation entitled "Crop-Land Use in the Vicinity of Greater Bombay in 1987. He worked as a lecturer in one of the colleges under the same university. After six years of lecturing, he resigned to work in the field of Vrikshayurveda (Ancient Indian Plant Science). For that purpose, in 1994, he started an Ayurvedic medicinal plants nursery with 126 species of plants and researched on four species of earthworms to start a vermicompost unit for nutritional support for growing them in the field. Since then, by establishing a proprietary firm he has successfully developed general and theme-based landscaping projects (eg. antidote plants garden for one research institute) and farm development, medicinal plants, and horticultural plantations using principles of Vrikshayurveda one such is to provide a happy, healthy, and peaceful life to plants so that they will provide the same to mankind.

His main contributions for more than the past two decades are towards acquiring knowledge about Vrikshayurveda techniques and applying it in the field. Alongside he has presented eleven research papers based on his field trials and allied subjects and prepared databases of medicinal plants and project proposals for ecologically balanced plantations, horticultural and medicinal plantations. He is conferred with PhD on the topic "Vrikshayurveda: Spatio-Temporal Specialization and Bioprospecting" by the University of Mumbai. He also has the publication of four research papers to his credit.

He is also associated with The Journal of Natural and Ayurvedic Medicine (JONAM), USA as an Editor. He was also associated as Subject Editor: Vrikshayurveda with The Journal of Research and Education in Indian Medicine (JREIM), India.

During my Masters in Agricultural Geography I came across a book, A History of Agriculture in India, Volume 1 by M. S. Randhawa. This book created enthusiasm about the history of agriculture, but only for a while. Later after starting a business of vermicomposting and medicinal plants nursery to support organic farming, I started thinking what more can be done to make organic farming viable. During the search for this quest, I got access to a book Surapala's Vrikshayurveda by N. Sadhale The information available in the book raised my eagerness to search for more such books and I got access to Brihat Samhita and Agni Purana. The period of all three treatises is between 600 AD and 1000 AD. The information in all these treaties was so interesting that I could not resist testing it. To my surprise even in the twenty-first century I got astonishing results. These results ignited the eagerness of the researcher in me to gather more and more information about Ancient Indian Plant Science that is, Vrikshayurveda. This book is an outcome of that enthusiasm.

Ever since the evolution of unicellular organism the skill of eating for survival has attained a different level for making life more and more happy, healthy and peaceful for both flora and fauna. In this process principles of science are used. In the Indian context, human health science is called Ayurveda. The Sanskrit word Ayur means life and Veda denotes knowledge or science. Thus, Ayurveda exemplifies the science of health or the science of life. The tree in Sanskrit is known as Vriksha and Ayurveda is added as a suffix to it, the new word becomes Vrikshayurveda. Applying the meaning of the term Ayurveda to Vrikshayurveda, Vrikshayurveda becomes the science of tree life. Plants which constitute the main source of food and medicine for humans were studied by applying principles of Ayurveda and findings were recorded as Vrikshayurveda.

Vast information about plants is available in ancient Indian literature and little from archaeological evidences. This information was, is and can be used in the future for a happy, healthy and peaceful life of man and plants so that plants will provide the same to mankind. This book summarizes this information mainly in four sections viz. Introduction, Botany in Vrikshayurveda, Medical Science in Vrikshayurveda and Agricultural Science in Vrikshayurveda. These main sections are further subdivided, as given in the content, to provide specific information about topics related to Vrikshayurveda. The subdivided information is arranged in four time periods such as Harappan Period (Prior to 1500 BC), Vedic Period (1500 BC-600 BC), Post Vedic Period (600 BC-600 AD) and Medieval Period (600 AD-1600 AD).

As far as possible, references have been cited to enable the interested reader to go through the original source and for more simplicity references used are given at the end of every chapter. For the sake of easy access, the references are divided into two groups, namely manuscript references and other references. Manuscript references are multiple references of one treatise. For example, six versions of Brihat Samhita are used for cross referencing. Whenever translations are used especially, related to manuscript references they have been slightly modified for easy understanding. In many cases, they convey illuminating the past and help making information vivid, meaningful and exciting. For the sake of easy understanding of the common reader International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) is avoided and the Binomial System of Nomenclature of Plants has been adopted.

Despite my best efforts, I am aware that this book has certain limitations. For instance, the book has become very long, which may be due to love, affection and availability of vast information about the topic. But this has not affected the aim of the book.

This book aims to encourage readers to think and act courageously to find new avenues to make human life happy, healthy and peaceful by taking the baton from our ancestors. At the same time readers must keep in mind that knowledge provided by our ancestors is time tested, truly scientific without prejudice. About this in the Journal of World History, M. J. Filliozat, Professor of the College of France, states that "Research in ancient India led very early to the development of theories which, although ahead of their time, nevertheless logical systems of thought about structure of reality, that is to say of science." His observations specifically deal with astronomy and physiology discussed in texts between 1500 BC and 500 BC. This can be applied to Vrikshayurveda because astronomy and plant physiology are important component of Vrikshayurveda.

More research is required using the principles of Vrikshayurveda because if the future of mankind is organic then its base is Vrikshayurveda.