Sacred Plants of India

India is a highly biodiverse country and at least four major factors are responsible for our rich endowment of plant and animal genetic resources. These are: cultural diversity (including spiritual values), culinary diversity, curative diversity (a wide variety of medicinal plants), and ecosystem diversity.

Among these factors, spiritual values have contributed much to saving many important plants and trees.

This book contains a fascinating account of numerous sacred trees and groves. The book also describes the efforts made from ancient times to invest on selected trees a sacred aura.

Trees were revered for any one of four primary reasons: for their medicinal qualities, such as the neem and the tulsi; for their economic value, such as the Alexandrian laurel which was used to build catamarans and ships off the Coromandel Coast; for their ecological importance, such as the mangrove in Chidambaram; and for their sociocultural role, such as the banyan, the meeting place of the Bania or business community. – Nanditha Krishna, Author and Activist