A Concise History of Science in India c10.2

c10.2

The word ‘agriculture’ (*agri* = field; culture = tillage) means tillage of the soil leading to production of crops. The origin of agriculture could be traced to the early human attempts at settling down in congenial environments and gradually exploiting the animal and plant resources which were found easily accessible. Undoubtedly, wild plants, their roots, fruits and seeds were among the principal plant resources belonging to the vegetable kingdom used as food by early man. In course of time it is natural to suppose that he must have gained a practical knowledge of their growth-characteristics, factors conducive to their rearing as well as reproduction, and their effect on the human system. There were indeed several steps between the necessity of gathering wild fruits, roots and seeds, and that of the regular cultivation of plants which produce them. When man began to lead a settled life, possibly being assured of an adequate supply of wild plant products some of which he could also store for a reasonable period, he was doubtless in a definite position to indulge in what may be called plant domestication even if it was on a small scale. The archaeological evidence indicates that in the old world the main area of such a domestication of plants was the Near East which is sometimes referred to as the ‘Fertile crescent’, and which includeda Mesopotamia, eastern coast of the Mediterranean and the Nile valley. It is now known that by about the eighth or seventh millennium b.c., there were definite practices of plant domestication in the Near East although the beginnings of cultivation occurred at different periods in different places of the region. The digging stick and the hoe were the early contrivances of cultivation and the plough appears to have arrived on the scene by about the fourth millennium b.c. (probably in the eastern Mediterranean region) when agriculture became one of the most important productive enterprises.b In India, the history of agriculture begins with the practices of the inhabitants of the Indus Valley riparian culture. The fertile alluvial soil, rather a heavy monsoon rainfall at that time and the water of the Indus were conducive to the growth of a number of domesticated plants. As Marshall says: ‘Great cities with teeming populations like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa could never have come into being save in a country which was capable of producing food on a big scale, and where the presence of a great river made transport, irrigation and trade easy.’a Indeed the economy of the people of the Indus Valley Civilization was based on agricultural produce, which was quite substantial, although it would appear that, when compared with that of Mesopotamia, it was noticeably less. As regards the agricultural implements, they did not know the use of plough, but had only toothed harrow as may be inferred from one of the Indus ideograms.b They, however, knew the technique of flood-irrigation.