I just finished reading your letter.
I am not an expert but by recollecting the Economic and Agricultural
Botany that I studied two decades ago left some faint memories -
the desert and oasis communities, the upland and plain communities,
the voyagers and people on river banks and sea shores did do
trade with the agricultural commodities (as you mentioned vegetables,
grains etc.). The remnants of that trade (economy) are still seen
in the tribal (hilly areas) and adjacent plains. One thing I still
vividly remember is the trade practices of the Savaras (savaralu or
savarlu : a tribe in the Northeastern Andhra hills : on whose lifestyles,
language, and lipi Sri Gidugu Ramamurthy ga'ru did unparallel work) -
the Savaras used to bring their agricultural products like vegetables,
pa'la gumDa (poDi) (a powder with which one makes beverage with milk),
cimtapamDu, aga'kara ka'yalu, pasupu, karakka'yalu, vippa puvvu (Madhuca
indica - the famous spirit flower from which the sa'ra' is prepared) and
exchange them with the people on plains for kirasa no'ne (kirosene),
hair oil, cosmetics, and other supplies. I saw the existence of this
practice among the Savaras even 8 years ago. The frequency of this trade
among Savaras (as you said : rudimentary economy with agricultural
products or produce) may be very low now a days. I am not surprised if
this practice does exist among kOya's and other tribes of Andhra -
as an example (of what you said).
I did hear about the Shakespeare (sp? - always I have a problem with this
spelling) garden. Thanks for elaborating on that. Carl Linnaeus (the
father of taxonomy - plant taxonomy) is a familiar name to many
biologists. In his name, a garden is maintained in Sweden (if I am
correct about the place) and this garden is in the form of a clock - with
the plants that Linnaeus did his work on.
I came across a book called "maha'Ba'ratamlO prakRti varNana" -
probably talks about the description of nature during the Bharatam times.
Also in rama'yaNam, Rama describes the vana sampada of east coast
wile travelling on the pushpaka vima'nam with si'ta. If you try to
initiate the discussion on "Ba'gavatamlO vRksha sampada" - I would like
to know what plants did pOtana describe. Could you kindly list them?
One scree gone already ! Too much keying!!
Incidentally, some our epics (in Telugu) may also contain the
classification scheme of plants. Could some one help on this?
A small pitta kadha here I would like to say wasting the band length.
The vegetation on the Nilagiri hills and Himalyas share a lot of common
features. This story was told by my cousin (the then dean of sciences,
Univ. of Delhi, Dr. Varanasi V. Sreerama Murty, a student of Dr. T. R.
Seshadri). Hanuman was unconcious in the Ramayana war. Hanumantha was
sent to bring the sanji'vini (samji'va) parvatam. While Hanumantha was
bringing that sanji'vini parvatam to lanka where the war was going on, a
chunk of that mountain fell in the Nilagiri area. That is a legend.
Any way - please post the names of the plant in pOtana's Ba'gavatam.
I am interested. Also Dr. Vemuri is curious to know - I bet!!!
--pa'lana
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry! I exceeded the "two screen" limit.
cEtivELLE medaDaitE?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
._~Y~_;
' (* *)
^--\-/--^
@`_/ /\ ^ /\ \_'@=+--------- pa'lana
`__' {===} `__' nlp55@cas.org
/_____\ CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS SERVICE
|| || AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
_________N_|_|_P_________________________________________________________