Prologue

Summary

As an urbanite, I had studied the natural sciences in school, college and university. However, these were all of Western origin: I was not exposed to any other form of knowledge. I did not know that other useful knowledge systems – indigenous ones – existed in an organised form in our society or that they were still functional and used regularly by a vast number of people.

Later, while working as a social activist, I lived in the Karjat tribal block for 12 years. There, for the first time, I encountered medicinal plants and forests. I could not fail to notice, often with amazement, that the local Thakur, Mahadev Koli, and the Katkari tribals used many local plants and animals for health care. The methods of treatment I saw first-hand were incredible and impressed me deeply. Lactating mothers used Ipomoea mauritania (vidari kand) to enhance breast milk. The leaf of the common plant Calotropis gigantea (arka patra) was used to reduce a testicle swollen to twice its size (presumably hydrocele): the treatment worked in four days! The latex of the same plant applied on the skin could draw out a thorn from deep within. The fruits of Terminalia bellirica (bibhitaka) were used to treat dry cough. The roots and bark of Holarrhena pubescens (kutaja) could cure dysentery. Helicteres isora (muradasinge in Marathi) could stop diarrhoea. The ‘touchme-not’ plant (Mimosa pudica or lajjavanti) was used to stop uterine bleeding, and the juice oidwva grass (Cynodon dactylon) could dissolve gall bladder stones.