Vanaspati: Plants and Plant-Life as in Indian Treatises and Traditions c6.29

c6.29

The first medical utterance of man is to be found in a text of the Rig Veda namely, in the *Aushadhi Sūkta* of the 10th *Maṇḍala* which gives us a description in detail of the variety of the use to which plants used to be put. One hundred and seven applications are mentioned, but the number must not be taken literally but as a poetic statement of plurality. Here is the Sūkta.¹