Natural history in the Indian subcontinent has a long heritage with a recorded history going back to the Vedic era. Natural history research in early times included the broad fields of palaeontology, zoology and botany. These studies would today be considered under field of ecology but in former times, such research was undertaken mainly by amateurs, often physicians, civil servants and army officers.
Although the growth of modern natural history in India can be attributed to British colonialism and the growth of natural history in Britain, there is considerable evidence to suggest that India with its diverse landscapes, fauna and flora along with other tropical colonies helped in creating an increased interest in natural history in Britain and elsewhere in the world. Natural history in India was also enriched by older traditions of conservation, folklore, nature study and the arts.
Indus Valley Civilization
Over a thousand sites of the Indus Valley civilisation across north west South Asia, before 1700 BC have been studied to date. A large number of animal bones have been found at these sites; one-fifth of these comprising bones of wild fauna, such as the jackal, hare, chital, rhinoceros and elephant. Most seeds found in the dwellings of some western Indian sites are of wild plants now extinct in the region.
The fauna and flora of those times are richly represented in the clay pottery and tablets excavated from these sites. Clay tablets document many species of now locally extinct wildlife including rhinoceros and elephant. A tiger seal has been found in Harrappa dating back to 3000 BC.
The swamp deer or barasingha was found in Mehrgarh in Baluchistan till 300 BC and probably became locally extinct due to over-hunting and loss of riverine habitat to cultivation. A species of wild cattle, Bos primegenius nomadicus or the zebu vanished early on from its range in the Indus basin and western India, possibly due to inter-breeding with domestic cattle and resultant fragmentation of wild populations due to loss of habitat.
The first recorded domestication of the elephant was in Harappan times and the animal ultimately went on to serve as a siege engine, mount in war, status symbol, work animal, and an elevated platform for hunting.
Vedic period
The Vedas represent some of the oldest historical records available (1500 – 500 BC) and they list the names of nearly 250 kinds of birds besides many other notes on various other fauna and flora. In the vedic texts, Aryavarta, the land of the Aryans, was considered to be co-terminous with the range of the blackbuck. Sometimes, these referred to the lands North of the Vindhyas; at others times, it included lands to the South. A notable piece of information mentioned in the Vedas is the knowledge of brood parasitism in the Indian koel, a habit known well ahead of Aristotle (384 – 322 BC). This is possibly because both the Indian koel and its host the house crow were common and easy to observe.
The medical treatises of Charaka and Sushruta mention wildlife from the point of view of the meats the forests yielded and their associated attributes. The stratification of Hindu society into the caste system saw the warrior caste or kshatriya setting itself apart on hereditary lines; one assertion of which was the right to eat certain animals. The treatises espoused rules as to when, and who could or could not eat flesh of particular animals; for example, the flesh of the lion and tiger were to be consumed solely by regents and that too on rare occasions.
The elephant was another well studied wild animal and the capture, training and maintenance of elephants was documented in the 2000-year-old text Gajashastra written in the Pāli script.
The Tamil literature of the Sangam period, depicts a classification of land into 5 eco-types; ranging from the littoral to wet paddy fields. These landscapes were named after specific species of plants, named after their flowers (Strobilanthes spp., Jasminus spp., Lagerstroemia reginae, Wrightia tinctoria and Nymphaea. The Tamils also designated specific faunal assemblages for each of these 5 landscapes. Unlike most of the natural history information in Indian poetry, the Sangam poems contain realistic descriptions of morphology, behaviour and ecology of various species, besides astonishing comparison of flora (or floral parts) with fauna (or their parts).
The Maurya period
The protection of animals became serious business by the time of the Maurya dynasty in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The first empire to provide a unified political entity in India, the attitude of the Mauryas towards forests, its denizens and fauna in general is of interest.