Ancient Indian Flora in the Ashtadhyayi of Panini

Abstract

Panini, the greatest grammarian of the Sanskrit language is the author of a work called the Ashtadhyayi,comprising about four thousand rules. His date is about 500 B.C. The cultural data in Panini's work are considered by Indian historians as authoritative as those from epigraphical and numismatic sources. The study of Paninian flora furnishes an important chapter in the general history of Indian plants, which still remains to be written on the basis of literary and archaeological sources. The author refers to the systematic cultivation of forests and groves of trees and plants. He also shows acquaintance with early attempts at nomenclature of plants on the basis of their flowers, leaves, fruits and roots. He is acquainted with the principal trees of north India like Ficus rehgiosa, Ficus bengalensis, Ficus infectoria, Mangifera indica, Butea frondosa, Aegle Marmelos, Acacia catechu, Dalbergia Sissoo, Shorea robusta and Salvadora indica. A good many of these are referred to by him for the first time, which offers a proof of their antiquity on Indian soil in the 5th century B.C.