U’khand develops park with plants mentioned in Ramayana

DEHRADUN:THE forest department has developed a Green Ramayana Park where plant species mentioned in Valmiki’s Ramayana and associated with Lord Rama have been grown.

State chief conservator of forests (research wing) Sanjiv Chaturvedi said Green Ramayana Park, which took over six months to develop in Haldwani Biodiversity Park on acre of land, is the first of its kind thematic project touching the little-explored aspect of Ramayana, especially in the context of the flora mentioned in it and associated with the journey of Lord Rama across four main forest types in India.

Two other forests types are associated with Sita and Hanuman, he said. “We explored available literature and religious texts to find out the plant species associated with Lord Rama. And to our surprise, we found Valmiki’s Ramayana as the treasure trove of such information. It is a botanist’s delight. We found around 139 species that have been mentioned in it.

“So, we researched on these plants and found that nearly 90 percent of them are still found in the areas mentioned by the sage. Then we found their scientific names and selected some 30 representative plants from six main forest types associated with Lord Rama journey, Sita and Hanuman,” he said.

“During Lord Rama’s journey from Ayodhya to Sri Lanka, he came across four types of forests in the India subcontinent including Chitrakoot (tropical deciduous), Dandakarnanya (tropical deciduous), Panchavati (tropical dry deciduous) and Kishkindha (dry and moist deciduous). Ashok Vatika (evergreen) is associated with Sita while Dronagiri (alpine forest) is associated with Lord Hanuman,” Chaturvedi said.

He said the most fascinating part is that geographical location and species composition of forests described in Valmiki’s Ramayana are still more or less the same whether it is Saal and Sagaun in Dandkarayana which falls in Central India or Chandan or Raktchandan in Kishkindha region which falls in present Karnataka.

“We have grown 30 important plants, herbs and shrub species mentioned in the Ramayana including Seeta Ashok, Chandan, Raktchandan, Brahmi, Jeevanti, Tulsi, Saal, Sagaun, Maulshri etc.”