Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c22.s2.6

c22.s2.6

(1) Udayana (*c* A.D. 975) notices in plants the phenomena of life, death, sleep, waking, disease, drugging, transmission of specific characters by means of ova, movement towards what is favorable and away from what is unfavorable.
(2) Gunaratna (*c* A.D. 1350) enumerates the following: (*i*) stages of infancy, youth and age; (*ii*) regular growth; (*iii*) various kinds of movement or action connected with sleep, waking, expansion and contraction in response to touch; also movement towards a support or prop; (*iv*) withering on wound or laceration of organs; (*v*) assimilation of food according to the nature of the soil; (*vi*) growth or decay by assimilation of suitable or unsuitable food as prescribed in the science of the diseases of plants and their treatment (*Briksayurveda*); (*vii*) disease; (*viii*) recovery from diseases or wounds by the application of drugs; (*ix*) dryness, or the opposite, due to the sap which answers to the chyle (*rasa*) in animals; and (*x*) special food favorable to impregnation.