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VANASPATI VANASPATt PLANTS AND PLANT-LIFE AS IN INDIAN TREATISES AND TRADITIONS Griffith Memorial Prise Essay for BY t PBASANNA . MAJUMPAR. M. So. . B. L PROFESSOU OF BOTANY, PRESIDENCY COLLEGE, CALCUTTA PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA 1927 To My Mother PREFACE My thesis on Plants and Plant-life as in Indian treatises and traditions, submitted and finally approved for the Griffith Memorial Prize for 1925, is being presented at last in the follow ing pages to the reading public. I must humbly mention that this thesis is rather a result of cer tain specific inquiries, undertaken by me in 1923, to satisfy a curiosity as to what wealth of inform ation on the subject of Plants and Plant-life might yet be gathered from Indian literature which is a continuous record of many centuries and a vast store-house of human experiences, fancies and speculations. It was not an easy task for me to face the difficulties of exploiting the various sources of information, specially where these remained concealed in Sanskrit and other Indian works not accessible to me in English translations. It is happy to recall to my mind that when I had proceeded with the task the prospect was far from being bright, but to my great astonishment, within a month I was able to collect numerous passages having bearings PREFACE viii upon the subject, and enabling me to conceive a much wider plan of treatment than one restricted to the requirements of the Science of Botany. This is to say, that in this thesis the plan has only been partially carried out. I have little doubt that a vivid account of how much human civilisation has derived from Plants and Plant-life in its progress, on the basis of the materials collectedby me, will read like a romance which may be calculated not only to fascinate but also to instruct. The plan and method of treatment which I have followed in working out the present thesis are intended to meet the demands of a modern student of Botany like myself. The masses of information collected by me have been classified and systematically arranged for the convenience of reference. It will be seen that the chapter headings are taken from Botanical treatises, and expedience is my only excuse, for, in the absence of any Indian Botanical text there is no other alternative than utilizing a scheme which is available, in order to render the treatment of the subject really systematic. But I think I have not failed to indicate the three different lines upon which the contemplations of the Ancients on Plants and Plant-life had proceeded in India. As a matter of fact the titles of the three Books Book I Botany and Philosophic Speculations II Botany and Science of Medicine PREFACE ix Book III Botany and Science of Agriculture have been conceived on the basis of three diffe rent lines that I was able to make out. In the Introduction I have tried to suggest what reply can reasonably be given to the enquiry whether there was at all anything like a Science of Botany in India. It has been suggested that there are not only reference to such individual Sciences as the Krishitantra, Friksha yurveda and Bheshajavidya, but clear quotations from such individual authors as Kasyapa, Para frira and Saraswata, And yet I have not gone so far as to maintain that there was any single an cient Indian treatise coinciding with any of the modern treatises of Botany. I have been con cerned to emphasise the factthat the ideas of plants and plant-life in India are traced to a stage when Botanical discipline had not obtained an independent position, for much of the know ledge which might be relegated to the Science of Botany appears to have been either subser vient to Philosophy, or to the Science of Medi cine, or to the Science of Agriculture...