Medicinal Plants of Madhya Pradesh : An Ethrobotanical Survey
Dr. Parveen Garg
Anuradha Prakashan, New Delhi Medicinal Plants of Madhya Pradesh : An Ethrobotanical Survey
All rights reserved. Author Dr. Parveen Garg
ISBN No.: 978-93-82339-78-6
First Impression, 2014
Price = 375/-
Published by : Anuradha Prakashan 1193 Pankha Road, Nangal Raya, Adj. D2A Janak Puri, New Delhi-110046 Mob.: 9213135921, 9873080170, 011-28520555 www.anuradhaprakashan.co.in email : [email protected] CONTENTS
SUMMARY 6
INTRODUCTION 9
CHAPTER-1 30
CHAPTER-2 ANDEMAN AND NICOBAR ISLANDS
CHAPTER-3 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PLANTS FOUND TO BE IN USE OF THE TRIBALS OF MADHYA PRADESH 52
CHAPTER-4 ENUMERATION 58
CHAPTER-5 89
IN FIELD WORK FIELD REPORT
DISCUSSION
REFERENCES
LIST OF TABLES 1. List of Tribes and their population as per 1991 census in Madhya Pradesh. 2. Tribal population of Madhya Pradesh in 1991 3. Tribal population in Madhya Pradesh from 1951- 1991 4. District-wise tribal population of Madhya Pradesh as in 1991 LIST OF PLATES Plate 1 Plate of Bangraj (Eclipta prostrate (L.) L. Plate 2 Plate of Costus Plate 3 Plate of Ghoomi (Leucas aspera (Willd) Spreng Plate 4 Tribal market Plate 5 Khumra Plate 6 Tribal with Khumra Plate 7 Ute threading Plate 8 Tribal woman and Dhenki Plate 9 Rice cultivation Plate 10 Fish net Plate 11 Rice basket from Paddy straw Plate 12 Bethri-I Plate 13 Bethri-II Plate 14 Matriarchial family Plate 15 Protection device Plate 16 Medicineman Plate 17 Tribal people returning from Haat Plate 18 Tribal family Plate 19 Tribal person with his son Plate 20 District medicineman Plate 21 Persons waiting for medicineman Plate 22 Teashop Plate 23 Gulbakawali Plate 24 Tribal woman carring fuel wood Plate 25 Plant of Bryophyllum
LEGENDS 1. Bangraj (Eclipta prostrate (L.) L.) : Sap of leaves and flower is used as antiseptic. Burning with coconut fibre. 2. Costus : Plant is used to initiate lactation in women milky extrusion of stem is taken with Gur (Molases). 3. Ghoomi (Leucas aspera (Wild) Spreng) : Flowers and leaves are used to cure yellow fever. 4. Kaccha sheds as modern market for tribals. 5. Khumra (Umbrella) made from Mohline leaves. 6. Tribals using Khumra. 7. Jute threading, Animal husbandry and means of ploughing : with the help of GovernmentalAgencies. 8. Dhenki: Tribal woman crushing paddy with indigenous equipment. 9. Tribal youth cultivating rice. Helping hand by the Department of Horticulture. 10. Tribals having fish net and fish (in bag). Helping hand by the Department ofAgriculture. 11. Person carrying rice basket: made from Paddy straw, for carrying rice. 12. Bethri device for sitting on floor. 13. Bethri: For commercial market. 14. A Matriarchial family: Male cooking food, sewing machine kept aside. 15. Protection from stray animals: Wheat straw/Paddy straw is stored in this, also used for incubating raw wine (Table5). 16. Medicineman: Ploucking Gandhila grass: having nicotine as active constituent. 17. Tribal people, returning from haat (market) quite happy, sold everything. 18. Tribal enjoying with their children. 19.Tribal entertaining his son, wearing string of rudaraksh. Bike of forest ranger is also shown. 20. Medicineman: Wearing distinct dress, living in relatively Pucca house. 21. Persons waiting for medicineman to get some prescription. 22. A man has started tea shop near the house of medicineman. 23. Pandit ji selling Gulbakawali ark, plant of Gulbakawall SUMMARY
The term ethnobotany is generally considered to be synonymous with either economic botany or with traditional medicine. This is not correct. While the two form a sub set of enthnobotany, the contest of ethnobotany as a descipline is broader and deeper and includes the entire culture-plant interactional complex under it. The direct, indirect or otherwise value added use of plants and their products by man primarily constitutes the domain of economic botany. Ethnobotany is not only just that. It has larger scope. Ethnobotany is also not synonymous with traditional medicine. Early origins of traditional medicine must have had its root in ethnobotanical folklore. However, today traditional medicine incorporates several well organised and distinct systems of diagnosis and cure. Plants have profoundly influenced the culture and civilisation of man. In India traditional lore, mythological stories, and events in the epics, as also, enumerable religious practices of worship in the household and in the temples, in festivals, births and deaths are all replete with references to the plants. Tribal people also have learnt from their ancestors, certain socio-religious ceremonies and are preserving these practices for generation. Madhya Pradesh has a tribal population of 153, 99, 034 persons as per census of 1991, which comes to 23 percent of the total population of the state. As it is, 17.5 percent tribal population of the country lives in Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh possesses the largest tribal population to total population, it ranks second, coming after Orissa which possesses 24.07 percent tribal population. In this contest 220 species belonging to 178 genera and 69 families have been mentioned. The information regarding the folk use of these plants have been furnished by the tribal herbal doctors known as Munda and many other knowledgeable persons including government employees during investigations in the field. No plants or voucher specimen has been collected. In this book, all the informations regarding the plants has been gathered on the basis of contact with the concerned persons. Enumerated plants have been arranged family- wise and the families part alphabetically. The genera and species are also arranged in alphabetical order under the families. Hindi or local name follows the scientific name. Immediately thereafter the information about the role of plant in tribal life is given. Man Plant Interaction
Various aspects of man plant interaction that result in conservation of resources side by side with their social views have been discussed under following heads: 1. Plants as offerings 2. Taboosrelated to plants 3. Totemsbased on trees and flowers 4. Plants in folk tales 5. Plants of divine status 6. Plants usage other than food, feed and medicine: (i). Hunting, (ii). Antidotes, (iii). Bark for clothing, (iv). Dyes, (v). Protection of stored grains, (vi) Seeds as decorations, (vii) Plants used for washing and bathing etc. 7. Transition from plant product gathering to plant domestication 8. Classical Indian medical system and its tribal basis: ethnobotanical studies of some important plants INTRODUCTION
The relationship between the native people of the region and the vegetation is of dual nature advantageous to the people as well as detrimental to the plant wealth if utilization crosses certain limits. The impact of man on the vegetation for the development and maintenance of plant wealth is of common knowledge. For ages man has been growing and improving plants for his own benefit. Man, during his cultural development has also disturbed the forest ecosystem through selective felling for agricultural expansion or collection of certain species for other specific uses. This relationship between man and plants forms the subject of ethnobotany. The term Ethnobotany was first used by Harshberger (1895). Introduction to Ethnobotany by Faulles (1958) was perhaps the first book specifically written on the subject. However, the another enlarged the scope of the book to cover almost the entire gamut of economic botany. This view is not generally accepted now. The term Ethnobotany is generally considered to be synonymous with either economic botany or with traditional medicine. This is not correct. While the two form a sub set of Ethnobotany, the content of Ethnobotany as a discipline is broader and deeper and includes the entire culture-plant interactional complex under it. The direct, indirect or otherwise value-added use of plants and their products by man primarily constitutes the domain of economic botany.
Medicinal Plants of M.P...... 9 Ethnobotany is not only just that. It has larger scope. Ethnobotany is also not synonymus with traditional medicine. Early origins of traditional medicine must have had its roots in ethnobotanical folklore. However, today traditional medicine incorporates several well organised and distinct systems of diagnosis and cure. In India alone three traditional systems of medicine, namely, Ayurveda, Sidda, and Unani, are distinguished. They have their own individual concepts; structure and organisation. Use of plants as primary source material in indigenous medical systems does not make it coincidental with other. Further, Ethnobotany includes study of foods, fibres, dyes, tans and other useful and harmful uses of plants; taboos; avoidances and even magico religious beliefs about plants (Jain 1963a, Ford 1978). Studies and publications on ethnobotany during last three decades have stimulated work on many subdisciplines, eg. Ethnotaxonomy, ethnomycology, ethnobryology, ethnopeteridology, ethnolichenology, ethnoecology, paleoethnobotany, ethnoclimatology, ethnomedicobotany, etc. Ethnotaxonomy deals with folk concepts of classification of plants according to habit-habitat, usage or some other parameters. Interesting observations have been made on use of prefixes or suffixes in local names for distinction in habit, e.g., trees, climbers, bushes, etc. Ethnobotanical studies confined to special groups of plants like pteridophytes, lichens and bryophytes are subdisciplines of ethnobotany. Ethnoecology deals with primitive concepts, relationship and care of environment. The impact of worship of certain trees or mythological associations
Medicinal Plants of M.P...... 10 and taboos with certain specifies contribute to conservation, and fall within the scope of ethnoecology. Plants have profoundly influenced the culture and civilisation of man. In India traditional lore, mythological stories, and events in the epics, as also innumerable religious practices of worship in the household and in the temples, in festivals, births and deaths are all replete with references to plants. Tribal people also have learnt from their ancestors certain socio-religious ceremonies and are preserving these practices for generations. One very interesting and practical aspect of ethnobotany has been the study of the various uses of plants made by existing tribal populations. This little known and at present obscure use now confined to a limited group could be commercially exploited for the benefit of the whole society. There are numerous example, i.e. Sarpgandha that have been in use of the tribals earlier and today are being used by all as a medicine for various diseases as blood pressure, insanity, insomnia, labour, malaria, nervous disorder, snake-bite and stomach trouble. From prehistoric time human culture has been influenced directly or indirectly by the plant kingdom. It is an accepted fact that modern civilisation developed only due to this influence throughout the ages. It is high time to exploit the empiric knowledge about the plant wealth that the aboriginal people are yet retaining as tradition by oral means only. The study of the influence of the vegetation on their culture, and vise versa, is the main aim of ethnobotanical studies that can bring into light either totally new or additional information about the plant wealth. Even today in many parts of the world there are a number of tribes who yet predominantly live in stone
Medicinal Plants of M.P...... 11 age or early metal age culture settings. Their life generally depends upon plants and primary plant products. These tribes still gather their food from wild plants. These aboriginal societies, display continuity of cultural traditions of their remote ancestors. Due to relative isolation from civilised people they have been able to preserve their distinct ethnic identity and cultural patterns. Plant have been used by them as a source of food, medicine, arrow and fish poison, dyestuff etc. beside fulfijlling ceremonial, religious and aesthetic needs. This unique knowledge acquired and accumulated by the aboriginal people over an unspecifiable span of time concerning multiple and multisided use of the local flora has been gathered by the thorough and long pains taking process. It is natural to assume, that in absence of any kind of supplementary aides, trial and error only could have been the primary method for evaluating the characteristics of the given plants. Most of this knowledge is unknown to civilised world. This knowledge among the aborigines has been passed on from generation to generation through various culture tradition as oral folklore, mores, magico-religious beliefs, legends etc. Chief objective of present day ethnobotanical studies is to gather information regarding plant usage that these societies have accumulated and to study the interaction between plants and the cultural backdrop of these people and, after ascertaining the correct mode of this usage, bring it to record and help through this information to serve the growing needs of the civilised society. Classical literature is another important source of information about culture based usages of plants. Hundreds of plants are mentioned in Hindu religious literature viz. Vedas, Epics, Purans, and other such
Medicinal Plants of M.P...... 12 sources. In India the earliest mention of medicinal plants is found in Rigveda. Classical literature viz. poetry, drama, dictiolnaries etc. from the part are another important source throwing light on cultural use of various plants in various ancient and medieval India societies. There are a decline in the use of plants in medicine till 1940 due to emphasis in chemical industry products. But an analysis of pharmacopoeia of developed country like USA has shown that many new vegetable drugs have been added to U.S. Pharmacopoeia since 1940 onwards. In 1965 at least 55 out of 200 most frequently prescribed products in U.S.A. have one or more plant constituents (Joshi et al, 1978).
Problems in Information Gathering Indian civilisation has an esoteric dimension. Even after the discovery the knowledgeable people do not reveal it to others. Many of these uses are often kept as closely guarded secrets that are only passed on from father to son. Sometime previous knowledge disappeared with the dying of the person having it. Not many of the plants, mentioned in herbal material medica, has so far been identified. Some of the plants such as Terminalia arjuna, Terminalia chebula, Sussurea lappa etc. mentioned in traditional material media, have strong curative properties. It is to discover these little known traditional uses of the flora of our land, that ethnobotany has become an important part of present day investigations (Janaki 1978). Dr. Y.C.Kong (1979) makes a strong plea to have a multidisciplinary approach while investigating on traditional medicines, “which are often based on
Medicinal Plants of M.P...... 13 centuries of empiricism and are often laced with superstition and mysticism”. Apart from esoteric habit, remote geographical locations and lack of communication with remote regions where the tribals are now confined and cultural as well as linguistic barriers have kept the tribes, in isolation not only from other tribes but also from modern civilisation keeping their cultural identity unique and unaltered. There is a wealth of information about plants, specially medicinal plants, hidden among these groups. India unquestionably occupies a premier position in the use of herbal drugs, utilising nearly 540 plant species in different formulations (Kapoor and Mitra, 1979). In fact India was one of the pioneers in the development and practices of well documented indigenous systems of medicine, the most notable being Ayurveda, Yoga, Siddha and the Unani systems. The material medica of these systems contains a rich heritage of indigenous herbal and other natural practices that have helped most rural people of India to sustain their health. Today about 75% of the population mainly consult traditional physicians and the sales turnover of indigenous medicines is about one and a half times more that of modern drugs (Rustogi, 1980).
Traditional Mode of Experience Transfer India being a vast country not only has very varied type of flora, but she also has innumerable sects of people having different beliefs, customs, traditions and mode of interaction with nature. The type of plants, the way in which they are used for various purposes naturally varies from tribe to tribe, group to group and from place to place. Hence, there is a great scope for ethnobotanical studies on the subcontinent. Traditionally the vast majority of the Indian
Medicinal Plants of M.P...... 14 Medicinal Plants Of Madhya Pradesh Ethnobotanical Survey
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