Forest Management in an Ancient Indian Scriptures Prospective With Specific Reference to Ramayana – Literary Evidence
Authors: - Dr. Pushpa Hongal , - Yashpal Kshirsagar, IFS 
Published: April 2024

The relationship between ecological and culture is more apparent in ancient Indian texts, and this is mirrored in several scriptures. Ancient Indian scriptures including the Arthasastra, Sathapatha Bhramanas, Vedas, Manusmrti, Brhat Samhita, Ramayana, and Mahabharata all represented the sustainable ideas of forest ecology and conservation. The Vedic teachings demonstrate how deeply embedded sustainability was in the minds of the ancient Indians. For example, the Atharva Veda (Chand, 1997) hymn 12.1.11 reads: "O Earth! Pleasant be thy hills, snow-clad mountains and forests; O numerous coloured, firm and protected Earth! On this earth I stand, undefeated, unslain, unhurt." Another hymn from Atharva Veda (12.1.35) reads: "Whatever I dig out from you, O Earth! May that have quick regeneration again; may we not damage thy vital habitat and heart."In particular, our Indian Scriptures such as Aranyakas ("forest" works), Upanishad, and Smritis contains many descriptions on the uses and management of forests, and highlight sustainability as an implicit theme. According to the Vedic traditions, every village will attain wholeness only when certain types of forests are present. Some of these are, however, equivalent to the 'protected areas' and 'production forests' of today. The concept of participatory forest management, an important forest management paradigm today, also was prevalent in ancient India, as illustrated by the example of a village committee overseeing the maintenance of forests.
In this context, Valmiki’s Ramayana is the most important source of botanical information. It is very useful in clarifying the botanical identity of various species of plAants and also their importance. It contains an extensive list of plants and also their specific geographical location. The epic also covers a vast area from Ayodhya to Lanka and thus gives an accurate account of different landscapes, mountains, river basins, forests and so on. When the Ramayana was being written, there were thick forests in Naimisharanya, Chitrakut, Dhandakaranya and Panchavati. The Bala kanda mentions the plants and forests of the region on the other side of the river Ganges, Kishkinda kanda discusses the geography and forestry and the biodiversity of the Pampa lake area; and the Aranya kanda describes the foliage of Sage Agasthya’s hermitage; Panchavati was a model of a modified ecology with fruit yielding and medicinal plants where cereals, millets and rice were found. The plants which are mentioned have an economic value, being sacred and utilitarian.
Despite the prevailing notion that forestry as a "science" and "practice" originated in the Western Europe and further advanced in North America (Lewis, 2005), the principles of forest conservation and sustainable management were well entrenched in the pre-historic India. Forestry traditions have been documented in the Anciient Indian Scriptures for long. For example, the Vedas contain several descriptions on the uses and management of forests; environment consciousness, besides natural resource and biodiversity conservation, were intrinsic features of rituals and practices. Both productive as well as protective aspects of forest vegetation were emphasized .In this paper authors are making an effort to understand forest management from ancient scriptures perspectives. Vedas,Upanishand,Rmayana and Bhagwadgeeta has been used to understand. This paper is purely based on secondary, which is based on these research methodologies called Hermeneutics, which is the interpretation of ancient or classical literature (Ramayana,Vedas,Bhawadgeeta) Epistemology, which is knowing and understanding the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge.