Indian Natural History - Vedic Times

Vedic Times

The Vedas represent some of the oldest historical records available (1500 – 500 BC) and they list the names of nearly 250 kinds of birds besides many other notes on various other fauna and flora. In the vedic texts, Aryavarta, the land of the Aryans, was considered to be co-terminous with the range of the Blackbuck. Sometimes, these referred to the lands North of the Vindhyas; at others times, it included lands to the South. A notable piece of information mentioned in the Vedas is the knowledge of brood parasitism in the Indian Koel, a habit known well ahead of Aristotle (384 – 322 BC). This is possibly because both the Indian Koel and its host the House Crow were common and easy to observe.

The medical treatises of Charaka and Sushruta mention wildlife from the point of view of the meats the forests yielded and their associated attributes. The stratification of Hindu society into the caste system saw the warrior caste or kshatriya setting itself apart on hereditary lines; one assertion of which was the right to eat certain animals. The treatises espoused rules as to when, and who could or could not eat flesh of particular animals; for example, the flesh of the lion and tiger were to be consumed solely by regents and that too on rare occasions.

The elephant was another well studied wild animal and the capture, training and maintenance of elephants was documented in the 2000 year old text Gajashastra written in the Pāli script.

The Tamil literature of the Sangam period, depicts a classification of land into 5 eco-types; ranging from the littoral to wet paddy fields.