Sacred Plants
Extraordinary qualities – Revere, adapt and express.
Now that India has lost much of her natural bounty to colonial plunder, overpopulation, shortsighted development projects and industrial alienation, I ask myself that how honest and truthful are we for the future, considering and learning from our ecology-conscious past in the golden eras of the Vedas and epics? If we do not consider trees and plants sacred, is it due to our alienation from nature and uncontrolled exploitive nature to use each and every bit and bytes of nature?
Trees are generous providers of food, shade, beauty and medicine. Hence, in India, we are taught to give respect to trees and plants. Scriptures tell us to plant ten trees if, for any reason, we have to cut one, we are advised to use parts of trees and plants only as much as is needed for food, fuel, shelter etc. we are also urged to apologize to a plant or a tree before cutting it, to avoid incurring a specific sin named soona. Certain trees and plants like tulasi, peepal etc., have tremendous beneficial qualities, are worshipped till today. It is believed that divine beings manifest as trees and plants, and many people worship them to fulfill their desires or to please the Lord. Now, this aspect of our belief system is created based on centuries of experience and examples of society’s dependency on trees. In present time, we have already started seeing many Green-Peace organizations promoting concept of protecting green belts on earth. To consider someone sacred because life is dependent on them looks like a selfish act to me and I feel that there should be some higher purpose above this clever bargain of reciprocation of thanks for all help received in terms of food, shelter and medicines.
I believe that, in past, as per scriptural evidences, to consider trees sacred must be an expression of reverence, beauty, bounty, veneration, abundance, generosity and vigor and not mere praise in return for help. Not much in past, Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1927 started research on belief system that “there is relation between Tree in my backyard and I” and he In his research in plant stimuli, showed with the help of his newly invented crescograph that plants responded to various stimuli as if they had nervous systems like that of animals. He therefore found a parallelism between animal and plant tissues. His experiments showed that plants grow faster in pleasant music and its growth retards in noise or harsh sound. This was experimentally verified later on.
BBC documentary, The Private Life of Plants by David Attenborough unveils plants and their activities in 6 parts showing similarity between humans and plants. Plants are able to travel (Example : Brambe), they search for their ways of sustenance and grow in unique fashion(the cheese plant as an example whose young shoots head for the nearest tree trunk and then climb to the top of the forest canopy, developing its leaves en route.), they reproduce (Pollen and a stigma are the two components needed for fertilization.) , there is social struggle between them, plants compete for dominance within them(the strangler fig ‘throttles’ its host by growing around it and cutting off essential water and light.). They live together harmoniously (The rafflesia has no stem or leaves and only emerges from its host in order to bloom — and it produces the largest single flower: one meter across.) and they also have to play survival of the fittest game (those that dominate the surface will proliferate is a rule in lakes, and the Amazon water lily provides an apt illustration.)
Exemplification by above instances (Travel, Growth, Flowering, Social struggle, living together and survival) is brought here to demonstrate concept of having similarities between life of humans and of a counterpart of inhabitants on earth. When we find extraordinary qualities in person, place or object, reverence comes automatically and trees with their qualities are having no difference than humans.
He who, dwelling in all things,
Yet is other than all things,
Whom all things do not know,
Whose body all things are,
Who controls all things from within-
He is your Soul, the Inner Controller,
The Immortal.
The SACRED is that which the object of veneration and awe is. The term comes from the Latin sacer meaning restricted or set off. A person may be designated as sacred, and so can be an object or a place, which is regarded as extraordinary or unique. Don’t you feel that the life in us, pervades all living beings, be it plants or animals? All living things have the same nature as far as basic instincts and activities are concerned and are uniquely extraordinary. When we see no difference between you and me, I certainly cannot see the difference between plants and us and that leads to utmost respect, admiration and gratitude not only for you but also for equally unique and extraordinary plants.
May be if this admiration and reverence for trees and plants becomes our life style at global level, we can solve our environmental issues by restricting exploitive use of abundant natural resources.
PS: Special Thanks to Rahul and Vedic Learning team for helping in editing.
Vedic Learnings 
R.M.SHARMA said,
September 21, 2008 at 12:00 pm
very good article