Vanaspati: Plants and Plant-Life as in Indian Treatises and Traditions c6.t3.153

c6.t3.153

A very valued treatise called *Krishi-Paraśara* of uncertain date, but composed certainly not later than the 5th century A.D., devoted principally to the plantation of paddy and secondarily to other things concerning agriculture, throw a flood of light upon the perfection attained by the Art of Agriculture in India. It deals with such topics as meteorological observations leading to the prediction of the scarcity, drought and abundance of rain ; superintendence of the field and its produce ; tending of the herd needed for cultivation ; preparation and application of manure ; the construction of agricultural implements, collection of seeds ; sowing ; harvesting, etc., etc. This treatise is all-comprehensive being full of a large number of pregnant aphorisms relating to the minutest particulars of agricultural processes.