Vanaspati: Plants and Plant-Life as in Indian Treatises and Traditions c4.2

c4.2

Botany is a modern science which imposes its own peculiar form of discipline. The subject matter of investigation which comes within its scope falls also within the broader scope of the Science called Biology. But Biology, too, as we know it, is a science of modern origin. The pride of this modern achievement cannot be relished by a people like the Indian conscious of a great historic past. At the same time it will be too much of arrogance and self-sufficiency on the part of the advocates of modern sciences to neglect the whole body of ancient treatises and the whole mass of traditions of a great people by treating them as a tissue of credulity and superstition. In the life of the science of Botany, exactly as in the life of other sciences, there were earlier processes suggesting its possibility. This may be accepted as a truism. Our enquiry then is—was there anything in India approaching the science of Botany? Were there any earlier processes which enabled the people of this great country to gain in the knowledge of plants and plant-life, and the art of application of this knowledge for the improvement of the general conditions of life?