Foreword

I have perused the entire text running about 115 pages and meticulously drawn 58 plates of line diagrams with colour and I found them profusely informative.

The author Shri Rabindranath Das has chosen the weeds as his subject and dealt with it elaborately about the medicinal properties of them. In this modern world where people talk about environment, global warming and the like, do not care about the weeds for the reasons that they are weeds.. The author has immense love for the plants and equal love for the animals is explicitly shown in various places in the text.

The weeds in them have many curative properties as discovered and listed by the author in each weed description. So why should we abhor them? This revelation by the author is the main strength of this book entitled, “Significant WORLD of insignificant WEEDS”. This book will be of a great use to plants men, teachers and those who practice herbal medicines. I hope this book will serve as a Vade-mecum to the above persons. In fine, I congratulate the author Shri Rabindranath Das for his efforts and interest in bringing forth such a useful work in the form of a book.

Dr. P. Michael,

M. Sc., M. Phil., Ph. D., FAPS., Dip. in French,

Lecturer in Botony (Retired),

K. M. Centre for Post-graduate studies,

Pondicherry – 605 008

Date: 6th June 2004

Place: Pondicherry – 11 8

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PREFACE

The “universe and its inhabitants” moving and static and allsoil, mud, dust, stones, pebble, water, air, fire, animals, birds, spirits, ghosts and finally the last species of the Mother Nature in the process of evolution, the great Humankind- this is where at present the creative source of Mother Nature is static, a bit longer than the usual time-space, it seems. Why? It is because Mother Nature is a bit confused because after Man…what? Everybody and everything is silently waiting for the next species? But why the delay? It is the guess of everybody and everything today.

Man is the last species created, modified and evolved under the same set of principles of Nature as the other species. Among these principles, “birth, growth, disease and death” are the principal ones. The next species is unwilling to manifest within the limits of of these set of principles; the next species, the super-resemblance of present Man, the ‘Superman’, is most unwilling to manifest under the influence of disease and death. The present Mankind is tired of the agony of birth, the misery of diseases and finally the helplessness of death. But the last species is so involved in the habits of these mortal living principles, that so far it has not been able to overcome and transform them into immortal ones.

Humanity as a whole is on the verge of ‘Transformation’ as per the rule of evolution but there is the great danger of extinction, because humanity is at the same time unwilling to transform so soon, of its self-destructive style of living.

Why is life such a tentative living ……..? Why is great Mankind, on the verge of transformation to superhumanity, still struggling with the possibility of extinction? It is because instead of becoming one with Universal Nature, humanity is trying to exploit it for a greedy living by becoming it’s master. I remember some lines I read in my college days, written by the father of the nation, Bapu’s (Mahatma Gandhi) follower economist E.Schmacher.

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He has written in his book “Small Is Beautiful”, that Man is a child of Nature… not it’s master. Man is a small child of Nature, so “Small is Beautiful”: this is the substance and main essence of his book so appropriate to the present human mental condition.

Bapu wrote rather very passionately, “The Earth has enough for man’s need but not enough for man’s greed”.“Nature is Man’s capital and to destroy and greedily consume earth’s fruits (oil, timber, mineral, animal produce etc) is for man to live foolishly and dangerously off his capital”. “If man is one with Nature he will not attempt to conquer it, will see his role in it as an extension of himself and will no more want to conquer it than he would wanted to cut off his right arm – good sense should tell the Humankind, that will be partial suicide”.

Now the question is how to become one with Nature, unless we have an equal relationship with it. Let us not think of a selfless relationship, but think in our usual way of a give - and - take relationship. While Nature is giving all its resources to us, we, Humanity, have been able to preserve and conserve only a part of Nature - that and mostly the cultivated species. We, have chosen to remain oblivious of many commonly other species growing around, known as weeds. These plant species (weeds) are considered as a hindrance to all other cultivated belly filling species and are mercilessly thrown around by us, which has resulted in the extinction of many of them. After the belly is extremely full, when we suffer from indigestion, we look for remedies in the medicine store, while the source of remedy is abundant around us.Though many books are there identifying many species other than the cultivated ones and explaining their utility to humanity, we still chose to remain oblivious to them; but off course, we have one excuse, those boks are not easily available and affordable to all.

Roadside wild flowering shrubs, ground covers full of tiny intricately designed flowers of varied colours, the sholas and the grass lands and grass hills of the Indian sub-continent have always been a matter of fascination for me.

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For decades I have roamed these places as an aimless, or may be aimful musafir. After setting down on the earth surface of the Divine Mother’s garden, I thought of giving shape to my long long winding and undulating dreams.

My first approach to giving my work of conserving and preserving weeds (the indigenous species) an institutional shape came in a Sri Aurobindo Ashram Agricultural Co-ordination Committee meeting. I appealed to all the farmers, gardeners and horticulturists that day, along with the present Managing Trustee, Manoj Das Gupta (Manoj-da), to do our best to conserve and preserve the wild species, called weeds; if we could not conserve them in our crop-fields, a portion of every garden and farm land could be set aside for the wild species to grow on their own. I was confronted with a “this person is partly out of kilter, though not entirely” gaze of silence. But my work continued and those silent gazes slowly turned into gazes of encouragement. The garden under my supervision at 2 Main Road NH45A, Vivekananda Nagar, Pondy-5 around Le Poulailler unit started to take shape as a mini wildlife garden full of weeds, collected by me in many trips to the different parts of India. Thanks are due to esteemed Manoj Da, (present managing trustee and then the trustee incharge, of the Agri-Horty section of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry) and the then manager of the unit Dear Kake-da (Promese Jauhar) for their active support without any restriction; instead they encouraged me with proper appreciation again and again, most of the time silently.

One fine morning in the garden in 1999 I thought about how to make my process of work reachable to others, because I knew that my efforts and other’s efforts in preserving and conserving the natural species are really very vital. I had a detailed discussion with Dr. Subhada Prasad Pani, Deputy Director, VCRC, ICMR, Pondicherry and Dr. Susil Pani, the eye specialist and my friend. Dr. Subhada Prasad Pani provided me with the present format of my work.

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His first question of inquiry to me was, “It is fine that you are recording the species with photographs, but can you draw them individually? that would make your work more intimate and authentic.” That same evening I had on my table many pencils, oil paints, water colours, brushes and papers, along with few weeds with their roots spread-eagled in large glass bottles of water.

I still remember those first moments of initial symphony of my romance with wild nature through the emotion of an artist on colour and paper. Both the doctors remain my constant source of inspiration in this field.

In 2001, after Kake-da (Promese Jauhar) left the unit, late Harikant-bhai, the then managing trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, asked me what I was doing other than my regular work. I didn’t know why he asked me that question but I gave my file of sketches and written materials to him. Then on his advice I started publishing my work with the world of weeds in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Annual Research report, under the title of “Sacred Grove of Wild Plants and Herbs”. Then came the translated version in Oriya language of the same work in Sachitra Vijaya an Oriya monthly family feature magazine . After getting inspired by Dr. Susil Pani’s two exhibitions of photographs on “Indian Temple Cars” and “Indian Dancing Forms”, in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Exhibition Hall, I gathered courage to put up an exhibition of my own colour sketches and paintings of weeds, with information on their utility and my feelings about them, expressed in my own words, along with a few photographs of natural surroundings taken by me. The exhibition was held in February 2004. And during those 12 days of exhibition, many visitors asked me to prepare a book of the materials exhibited. With the persuation of Dr. Susil Pani, a book started to take shape in my mind. Manoj Da, the managing trustee of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, inaugurated the exhibition and came again to the exhibition hall and asked me to prepare the texts and pictures for publication in a book.

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Other esteemed trustees ; Albert-da, Dilip-da (Dr. Dilip Dutta) Batti-da and many senior members of the Ashram came to see the exhibition and expressed their happiness.

I have read many books on natural species but to identify the species here, I have used only the volumes of Indian Plants by the late Raghunath Iyer and P.K. Warrier of the Arya Vaidya Sala, Kottakkal, because of their authenticity and the authors have generously given permission to farmers, foresters and physicians to use the volumes as references, specially helping to conserve the shrinking plant resources. They are really very far-sighted and visionary research scholars. I sincerely offer my gratefulness for them for their work. I always feel the Divine Mother, who is also the Mother Nature, “Prakriti” walking the small mud roads of the ‘Sacred grove of wild plants and herbs’, touching with her hands the roadside wild weed flowers, many to whom she has given spiritual names, affectionately encouraging them to grow fearlessly on her land, eternally. Yes, She is the mother to all- to any tiny insect and plants etc., as much as she is to great humanity. In her universe everything and everybody is proportionately placed. The idea of discrimination is a mental sickness, only related to us, the last species, “Homo-Sapiens”.

My very sincere thanks to all the above-mentioned personalities, as well as a very senior farmer–researcher of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Agri-Horti section, Mani-da (Manindra Pal) who always encouraged me with valuable words like; “Farmers are not merely manual laborers, as perceived by our society; they are real researchers and scholars in their own field of work, and so they are the real backbone of society”.

Finally I express my heartfelt thanks to Dr. P. Michael Sir, M. Sc., M. Phil., Ph. D., Dip in French, Lecturer in Botany (Retd), K. M. Centre for P. G Studies, Pondicherry, for his kind Foreword to this work.

I conclude with a sentence by Sri Aurobindo from the Synthesis of Yoga:“The Supreme Divine Nature is founded on equality”.

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