Sacred Plants of India , livre ebook

Penguin Books Ltd - Nanditha Krishna

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284 pages

English

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Plants personify the divine The Rig Veda (X.97) Trees and plants have long been held sacred to communities the world over. In India, we have a whole variety of flora that feature in our myths, our epics, our rituals, our worship and our daily life. There is the pipal, under which the Buddha meditated on the path to enlightenment; the banyan, in whose branches hide spirits; the ashoka, in a grove of which Sita sheltered when she was Ravana s prisoner; the tulsi, without which no Hindu house is considered complete; the bilva, with whose leaves it is possible to inadvertently worship Shiva. Before temples were constructed, trees were open-air shrines sheltering the deity, and many were symbolic of the Buddha himself. Sacred Plants of India systematically lays out the sociocultural roots of the various plants found in the Indian subcontinent, while also asserting their ecological importance to our survival. Informative, thought-provoking and meticulously researched, this book draws on mythology and botany and the ancient religious traditions of India to assemble a detailed and fascinating account of India s flora.

Sujets

Sciences et techniques

Earth science

Natural history

Trees

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Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	15 mai 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789351186915
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Nanditha Krishna M. Amirthalingam

SACRED PLANTS of INDIA
Contents
Foreword
Author s Note
PART I
Introduction
In the Beginning
Tree Worship in the Vedas
Tree Worship in the Epics, Puranas, Jainism, and Buddhism
The Woman and the Tree
Special Trees
Sacred Groves
Tree Worship outside India
Conclusion
PART II
Alexandrian Laurel
Ashoka
Bamboo
Banyan
Baobab
Bengal Quince
Bermuda Grass
Betel Vine
Bile Killer
Bombay Atalantia
Bottle Flower Tree
Butterfly Pea
Cannonball
Castor Oil Plant
Champaka
Clearing Nut Tree
Cluster Fig
Coconut
Common Bur-Flower
Cotton-Wool Grass
Crape Jasmine
Cus-cus
Custard Apple
Cutch Tree
Deodar
Downy Jasmine
Flame of the Forest
Gingelly
Grapevine
Green Gram
Hiptage
Indian Beech
Indian Butter Tree
Indian Cadapa
Indian Cherry
Indian Gooseberry
Indian Jujube
Indian Laburnum
Indian Laurel Fig
Indian Lavender
Indian Lotus
Indian Mesquite
Indian Medaller
Indian Persimmon
Indian Siris
Indian Blue Water Lily
Ink-Nut/Chebulic Myrobalan
Jackfruit
Javanese Wool Plant
Krishna s Butter Cup
Lemon
Lucky Bean
Mango
Mangrove (Blinding Tree)
Marigold
Mountain Ebony
Needle Flower Jasmine
Neem
Night Jasmine
Palmyra Palm
Pipal
Plantain
Pomegranate
Prickly Chaff Flower
Rice
Sacred Basil
Sal
Sandalwood
Sand Paper
Screw Pine
Shoe-Flower
Soma
Steaved Tree
Sugarcane
Swallow Wort
Sweet-Scented Oleander
Tamarind
Trumpet Flower
Turmeric
Tuscan Jasmine
White Marudh
Wood Apple
Wooden Beggar-Bead
Footnotes
Tree Worship in the Epics, Puranas, Jainism, and Buddhism
Conclusion
Banyan
Bottle Flower Tree
Hiptage
Mango
Pomegranate
Sacred Basil
Plant Names in Indian Languages
References
Select Bibliography
PENGUIN BOOKS
SACRED PLANTS OF INDIA
Nanditha Krishna is a historian, environmentalist, and writer based in Chennai. A PhD in ancient Indian culture, she is the director of the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation and C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre. She has pioneered the documentation of the ecological traditions of India, restored over fifty sacred groves, and established schools, the C.P.R. Indological Research Centre, and Shakunthala Jagannathan Museum of Folk Art. Her published works include Sacred Animals of India , Book of Demons , Book of Vishnu , Madras Then Chennai Now , Balaji-Venkateshwara , Ganesha , Painted Manuscripts of the Sarasvati Mahal Library , Arts and Crafts of Tamilnadu , and Art and Iconography of Vishnu Narayana , besides numerous research papers and newspaper articles. She is a professor and research guide for the PhD programme of the University of Madras and has received several prestigious national and international awards.
M. Amirthalingam is a botanist and environmental education officer at C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre, Chennai. He has researched and published the books Sacred Groves of Tamil Nadu , Sacred Trees of Tamil Nadu , Temple Tanks of Chennai , and Flora and Fauna of Valmiki s Ramayana , besides research papers and articles in various journals, magazines, and seminar proceedings. He is currently working on the All India Coordinated Research Project on Sacred Grove Ecosystem Service Assessment in the Inland Plains of Tamil Nadu sponsored by the ministry of environment and forests, Government of India.
In memory of Shakunthala and A.R. Jagannathan, a source of inspiration, encouragement, and love
Foreword
India is a highly biodiverse country and at least four major factors are responsible for our rich endowment of plant and animal genetic resources. These are: cultural diversity (including spiritual values), culinary diversity, curative diversity (a wide variety of medicinal plants), and ecosystem diversity. Among these factors, spiritual values have contributed much to saving many important plants and trees. This book contains a fascinating account of numerous sacred trees and groves. The book also describes the efforts made from ancient times to invest on selected trees a sacred aura. The sthala vriksha is a good example of this tradition of celebrating our biological heritage.
While reading this book, I was reminded of the following poem by Joyce Kilmer:
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
In 1976, I undertook a study of the oldest trees of India. I wrote to the Chief Conservators of Forests of all states and requested information on the oldest living tree in their state. Most of the replies related to banyan trees including the famous banyan tree of the Theosophical Society, Chennai. Several of the famous banyan trees were also associated with saints and temples. Temple trees such as Excoecaria agallocha of the famous Nataraja Temple at Chidambaram have probably been worshipped because of their importance to life and livelihoods. For example, the temple tree of Chidambaram, which is a mangrove, might have been chosen because mangroves serve as bioshields against coastal storms and tsunamis.
My study of the oldest tree of India revealed that a tree belonging to the species Morus serrata may be the oldest one (over 1200 years). Adi Shankara meditated beneath this spectacularly large mulberry tree in the valley of Joshimath. The age of this tree could be measured only from the year when Adi Shankara preached under it. Thus, there has been a strong correlation between our spiritual history and the history of sacred trees ( Indian Farming , February 1977). We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Nanditha Krishna and M. Amirthalingam for capturing the wonderful biological and spiritual heritage of our country in this beautiful book.
Chennai
PROFESSOR M.S. SWAMINATHAN Chairman C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre
Author s Note
When I wake up in the morning and look out of my window, the first thing I see is a cannonball tree with its unkempt stalks weighed down by clusters of flowers, standing on a bed of fallen flowers, which my gardener carefully collects and puts in a wide bowl of water on the dining table. This is intended to be a stress reliever, for such is the quality of the cannonball flower.
I was born in an old colonial bungalow on an ancestral property known as The Grove in Madras. At the end of the long garden there was, and still is, an ancient pipal tree, beneath which are five snake stones of different shapes and sizes, installed between 1903 and 1905 by my great grandmother, and a Ganesha relief dating back to the late Pallava period. Every day, my morning walk begins with a circumambulation of the pipal tree, the Ganesha, and the snake stones. I remember the days when the new moon arrived on a Monday, and a crowd of women from Teynampet village gathered to circumambulate the tree 108 times. My grandmother had taken the vow too, but, in view of her ill health, I would circumambulate the tree while she sat, prayed, and meditated beneath the pipal tree. And the ubiquitous tulsi still sits proudly in the centre of the open courtyard, within the house. Thus the sacred plants of India s hoary past have been a part of my own personal tradition and it was inevitable that further research on this subject was essential to comprehend our great inheritance.
I have seen sacred plants all over India, from the pipal at Rishikesh to the tulsi at Vrindavan, from the medicinal neem at Vaidishwaran (lord of medicine) temple at Kumbakonam to the khejari in Rajasthan s sacred groves. And I wondered at the knowledge of our ancient Indians. Many of the stories I have narrated in this book have come to me from elders in my family and those whom either Amirthalingam or I have met in the course of our travels. Others come from Sanskrit and Tamil literature or the sthala purana (local history) of the temple. These are oral traditions, which have held together Indian society.
M. Amirthalingam, scientist and environmental education officer at C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre, who has done path-breaking work in documenting sacred groves and sacred trees in Tamil Nadu and in Tamil literature, worked with me to put together this book. This book is thus the result of the combined research of a historian and a botanist, a Sanskritologist and a Tamilologist.
It is a great honour for us that Dr M.S. Swaminathan, the great scientist and father of the Green Revolution, consented to write the foreword for this book, for which we are truly grateful.
Many people have helped us in many ways. Dr P. Sudhakar took the photographs and checked the taxonomy, particularly the new Latin names, which botanists give their plants; Y. Venkatesh and Prema Srinivasan did the drawings; G. Balaji and R. Sathyanarayanan photoshopped the photographs and drawings; S.P. Vijayakumari, librarian of C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre, and V. Kamesh Raj, librarian of C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation, searched and found the books and articles we were looking for; and H. Manikandan carefully preserved the cornucopia of materials that we had collected.
Finally, this book would not have been possible but for the interest and enthusiasm shown by Udayan Mitra and Ameya Nagarajan of Penguin India; Ravi Singh, formerly of Penguin India; and Shruti Narain, copy editor at Penguin India, who spent much time and effort in checking every word and line and gave us excellent suggestions to improve the book.
I would like to end by saying that trees and forests were regarded as sacred because our ancestors knew their important role in the environment-giving us oxygen to breathe, purifying the air of its pollutants, giving us food to eat and material