TITLE : Nakshatra Vriksha and Sacred Grooves: the Traditional Ways for Healthy and Prosperous Life

SPEECH DELIVERED BY : Dr.Kaushik Date (MD Scholar, Ras and B. Kalpana, NIA, Jaipur, India)

EVENT : 4th WORLD AYURVEDA CONGRESS, 2010, BENGALURU.

The Ayurveda is known as ‘The science of life’. One just cannot imagine Ayurveda without plants and trees. In India, trees are treated as god. Many of these societies or cultures have traditionally developed strategies of conserving and managing nature and natural resources. Ancient books have references of ‘Aaradhya Vriksha’ and ‘Kshem Vriksha’. Brihat-nighantu-ratnakarnar and Tantra-raj-tantra have references for particular tree for person according to his Janm nakshatra. Of these Aaradhya Vriksha is for worship and one should protect it, while Kshem Vriksha is for regular use in daily routine for healthy life. There is another strategy for conserving nature ‘Sacred grooves’. The Sacred grooves are forest fragments of varying sizes, which are communally protected, and which usually have a signifi cant religious connotation for the protecting community. They are named differently, viz. ‘Sarna’ in Madhya Pradesh, ‘Devrai’ in Maharashtra, ‘Orans’ in Rajasthan, ‘Devarakadu’ in Karnataka, ‘Kovilkadu’ in Tamil Na du, ‘Kavu’ in Keral, ‘dev van’ in Himachal Pradesh, ‘Ki law Lyngdoh’ in Meghalaya, etc. Both these cultural methods not only provide spiritual growth but also have been instrumental in preserving valuable medicinal plants and trees, ponds, lakes, animals and ecosystem. Their important role in making human life healthy and prosperous will be explained in the paper.