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VRKSHAYURVEDA - REDISCOVERING A LOST SCIENCE

 

 

"Vrkshayurveda provides a wealth of knowledge on a variety of areas such as seed treatment, soil testing and preparation, methods for yield increase, land classification, details of cultivation of plants etc."

 

 

"Vrkshayurveda could also provide various alternatives to costly chemical fertilizers - resulting in huge savings for the agricultural community."

 

 

 

"Knowing about and enriching the traditional Indian agricultural practices will probably help us find ways of continuing with high yield agriculture without poisoning our soils, waters and air with large doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides."

 

  

 

Based on the information that is available it is clear that Vrkshayurveda is of great relevance in ayurveda, agriculture, horticulture and life sciences. It provides a wealth of knowledge on a variety of areas such as seed treatment, soil testing and preparation, methods for yield increase, land classification, details of cultivation of plants etc. Various other topics like the causes of diseases, their identification and treatment, exploration of water and minerals with the help of plants are also discussed.

Our understanding of the earlier processes, which enabled ancient Indians to gain knowledge of plants and plant life and the art of application of this knowledge for the improvement of the general conditions of life, can provide insights for solutions to several current-day problems. The naming of plants constitutes a highly interesting topic showing a good deal of accurate knowledge of the geography of India. Plants have been named according to special association, property, characteristic features, morphological features etc.

They were classified based on three distinct principles, namely botanical, medicinal and dietetic criteria. The study of Vrkshayurveda would make clear the various types and principles of classification that have been followed which would be very significant for ayurveda and life sciences. The angiosperm classification of plants, which is currently studied by students of ayurveda, has no direct relevance to them.

Several Crores are being spent every year on pesticides to control pests. Besides the mounting costs of these pesticides, they are also proving to be environmentally disastrous. A detailed study of Vrkshayurveda would provide us with information on pest management based on sound ecological principles. Fertilizers, again, have been a major expenditure. Vrkshayurveda could also provide various alternatives to costly chemical fertilizers. Useful information on modes of cultivation, seed preservation and treatment would also be of direct relevance in the current context.

Knowing about and enriching the traditional Indian agricultural practices will probably help us find ways of continuing with high yield agriculture without poisoning our soils, waters and air with large doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This seems especially important today when modern chemical agricultural technologies have proved themselves unsustainable. By learning about and enriching our agricultural tradition we would be enriching the world.

FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH VRKSHAYURVEDA

As a child I was very fond of gardening and at home we had small kitchen garden. We had an ash gourd (Benincasa hispida) plant which had profuse flowers. But not a single flower bore fruit and all the flowers withered away.

An old man used to come home once in a while to help with gardening. During one of his visits I mentioned this to him. "Oh, it's very simple to treat this," he exclaimed and asked for a piece of asafoetida (Ferula asafoetida). He dug a pit near the root and put the asafoetida into it. Within two weeks I noticed that the flower did not wither anymore and found tiny fruits. To our amazement that year we had a bumper crop of 100 ash gourds from one single plant!

It was more than 15 years after this event when I started looking at the literature on Vrkshayurveda that I was able to comprehend the rationale behind it. Asafoetida or hingu as it is called in Sanskrit, helps in correcting Vaatha dosha in living in systems. Since the process of transformation of flowers to fruits is governed by Vaatha dosha (Vaatha - a classification given to plants that are characteristically tall, slender and lightweight, with a rough surface and have leaves that wither and drop with the slightest heat from the sun), any imbalance in the functioning of this particular dosha will hamper the process and the flowers will wither away. The application of asafoetida near the root of the plant alleviates the imbalance and sets in motion the normal functioning of the system which resulted in my bumper harvest!

K. Vijayalakshmi
Research Director, CIKS

 

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