Vanaspati: Plants and Plant-Life as in Indian Treatises and Traditions c4.13

c4.13

Are we to suppose that the knowledge of plant-life developed along with the Science of Agriculture alone? First, let us enquire if there were any separate treatises devoted to the two sciences, one relating to agriculture, and the other to the knowledge of plant-life. Varaha-mihira's commentator—Bhaṭṭopāla—in explaining the prescriptions in the section on *Vrikṣāyurveda*, has elucidated the points by certain quotations from three ancient authors, namely, Kāśyapa, Parāśara and Sārasvata. It seems probable that the treatises ascribed to these authors were primarily concerned with *Krishi*—the art of cultivation, *Krishi-Parāśara* being the traditional title of a treatise associated with one of these authors. There is no reference as yet found out where *Krishitantra* and *Vrikṣāyurveda* have been exchanged one for the other. If it stands out from the sections in the *Brihat-saṃhitā* and *Agnipurāṇa* that the treatment of plant-diseases and their remedies was one of the subjects of investigation falling within the scope of the Botanical science, it may be supposed to have formed, so far as this point is concerned, also a subhead for the ancient Indian science of Medicine. So far as the recorded evidence goes, the reference indicating the close association of the knowledge of plants and plant-life with the art of healing are much earlier and plentiful. We shall briefly examine below two Vedic hymns—one in the Rigveda and the other in the Atharva Veda, and see what light they throw on this point: