REVIEW OF LITERATURE

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1 12 Chapter II REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Ethnobotany: World perspective The term, Ethnobotany was first coined by Harshberger in Introduction to Ethnobotany by Faulks (1958) was perhaps the first book specifically by name on the subject. Dick Schultes, who can rightfully be called as the Father of Modern Ethnobotany has done more research in this field. At the beginning, the subject however included mere identification and cataloguing of plants. Later, in 1916 Robin, Harrington and Marreco formulated the broad definition and considered this subject as a study of plant life amongst primitive societies, and of the effects of vegetal environment upon life, customs, beliefs and history of the people of such societies. Subsequently, the subject included the study of food, fiber, dyes and other useful including medicinal, aromatic and other economic and harmful plants, taboos, avoidances and even magico-religious beliefs about plants. Later, studies on ethnobotany have stimulated work in different sub-disciplines like ethnotaxonomy, ethnomycology, ethnoembryology, ethnopteridology, ethnoecology, ethnomedicobotany and inter disciplinary approaches like ethnopharmacology, ethnomedicine, ethnogynaeocology ethnobiology, ethnotoxicology, ethnoarcheobotany, etc. In the current age ethnobotanical studies cover a large geographical area of the world covering America, Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia. So far maximum works have been done in America (Cotton, 1996). The Southwest of U.S.A. is the best studied area in the world for ethnobotany (Ford, 1985). A number of books

2 13 have been published on the subject outside India, such as, The Folkore of Plants (Dyer, 1889), Ethnobotany of the Coachuilla Indians (Barrows, 1990), Ethnobotany of Western Washington (Gunther, 1945), An Introduction to Ethnobotany (Faulks, 1958), The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany (Ford, 1978), Huastec Mayan Ethnobotany (Alcorn, 1984), The Folk Biology of the Tobelo people (Taylor, 1990) and Ethnobotany- Principles and Applications (Cotton, 1996). Two ethnobotanical Dictionary have also been published, namely, Dariene Ethnobotanical Dictionary (Duke, 1968) and Isthmian Ethnobotanical Dictionary (Duke, 1986). Some other works can also be mentioned such as those of Brown (1868), Harshberger (1895, 1896), Chamberlin (1911), Schultes (1962 and 1963), Wasson (1969), Prance (1972), Altschul (1973) and Pollock (1990). 2.2 Ethnobotany: In India In India, through the usage of plants and also the records of such usage are very ancient, but under the title of Ethnobotany studies were initiated only by Dr. E.K. Janaki Ammal in She studied subsistence food plants of certain tribes of South India (Janaki Ammal, 1955). With this initiation, S.K. Jain and his associates carried out organized ethnobotanical studies first among the tribes of Central India (Jain, 1963, 1965, 1981). In 1982, the Department of Environment, Government of India sponsored an All India Co-ordinated Research project on Ethnobiology at about a dozen institutes and canters. It resulted in exhaustive work in number of institutions such as Botanical Survey of India, Central Council for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha,

3 14 Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine, National Botanical Research Institute, National Bureau for Plant Genetic Resources, Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleobotany, Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants and many universities and colleges. Over 500 research papers have been published in Indian ethnobotany during the last years, of these; over 300 are on food and medicine. Several books on Indian ethnobotany have been published, such as Glimpses of Indian Ethnobotany (Jain, 1981), Bibliography of Indian Ethnobotany (Jain, 2002), A Manual of Ethnobotany (Jain, 1987) Methods and Approaches in Ethnobotany (Jain, 1989), Dictionary of Indian Folk Medicine and Ethnobotany (Jain, 1991), Glimpses of Indian Ethnobotany has revised under the title Contributions to Indian Ethnobotany (Jain, 1990). Besides these, some important booklets are The Ethnobotany of the Tharus of Khaeri District, U.P. (Masheswari et al., 1981), A Contribution to the Ethnobotany of Santal Pargana (Goel et al., 1984), Ethnobotany of Tribals of Mizapur District U.P. (Maheswari et al.1986) and Ethnobotany and Medicinal Plants of Indian Subcontinent (Maheshwari, 2003). Some of the important publications from different states of India (excluding the Assam) are mentioned below: Bhargava (1983), Chakraborty and Vasudeva Rao (1988) published on Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Pal and Banerjee (1971) and Banerjee (1977) on Andhra Pradesh; Dam and Hajra (1990), Pal (1992), Maikhuri and Ramakrishnan (1992) Nath and Bordoloi (1993) on Arunachal Pradesh; Bodding (1927), Srivastava and Verma (1981) and Tarafder (1983) on Bihar; Bedi (1978) and Jain (1984) on Haryana; Uniyal and Chauhan (1973) on Himachal Pradesh; Dar et al., (1984) on

4 15 Jammu and Kashmir; Manilal (1981) on Kerala; Jain (1964a; 1965), Jain et al., (1973), Saxena (1986) on Madhya Pradesh; Sharma et al. (2003) on Monipur; Chaudhury and Neogi (2003), Bhardwaj and Gakhar (2003) on Mizoram; Kharkongor and Joseph (1990) and Tiwari et al. (1992) on Meghalaya; Rao (1990), Rao and Jamir (1982, 1982 & 1991); Jamir (1990) and Jamir and Rao (1990) on Nagaland; Vartak (1981 on Maharastra; Mudgal and Pal (1980) and Saxena et al.,(1981) on Orissa; Lal and Lata (1980) on Punjab; Joshi (1982) on Rajasthan; Janaki Ammal and Nagendra Prasad (1984) on Tamil Nadu; Maheswari and Singh (1987) on Uttar Pradesh and Jain and De (1966) and Das et al.,(1983) on West Bengal. Some ethnobotanists reviewed the ethnobotanical studies in India (Jain 1986, 1989). There are also some publications on methodology, scope and application of ethnobotany, viz. those of De (1968), Jain (1964b, 1967, 1987, 1989), Maheswari (1983, 1987), Rao (1989, 1990) and Rao and Hajra (1987). 2.3 Etnobotany in the context of Assam Assam was only partially explored ethnobotanically till 1980 (Borthakur, 1976, 1978; Majumder et al., 1978; Bhattacharrya and Nair, 1978; Tiwari et al., 1979; Bhattacharijee et al., 1980; Boissya and Majumder, 1980; Jain and Borthakur, 1980; Kumar et al.,1980). Of late, the region has however been received better attention and a large number of case studies in tribe wise (Baruah and Sharma, 1984, 1987; Hajra and Baishya, 1990; Gogoi and Borthakur, 1991; Sarma and Sarma Baishya, 1992; Borthakur and Gogoi, 1994; Borthakur, 1997; Borthakur and Sharma, 1996; Borthakur et al.,1996; Gogoi and Borthakur, 2001; Singh et al.,

5 ; Saikia and Nath, 2003; Das and Sharma, 2003; Sharma, 2003; Dutta and Nath, 2003; Bora, 2003; Barua et al., 2003), area wise (Boissya et al.,1981, 1983; Puri, 1987; Mahanta and Gogoi, 1988; Saklani and Jain, 1989; Borthakur and Goswami, 1995; Borthakur, 1993, 1996; Borthakur et al., 1996; Borthakur et al., 2004; Islam, 1996; Islam, 2000; Islam and Hasin, 2003; Singh et al.,2003; Gogoi et al., 2003; Gogoi and Das, 2003; Saikia and Nath, 2003; Purkayastha et al., 2005; Purkayastha et al., 2007 ) and plant wise (Nath and Bordoloi, 1991; Saikia and Nath, 2003a) has been conducted form this region. Likewise, the ethnobotanic works conducted in the region have been reviewed by a few workers engaged in the field (Jain et al., 1984; Nath and Begum, 1998; Begum and Nath, 2000). Of about 200 works so far published in the subject (Nath and Begum, 1998) about 80 works have reported plants having mainly on folkore medicinal values. 2.4 Etnobotany in the context of Deori Tribe of Assam The Deories are one of the major ethnic groups of Assam. Some information on ethnobotanic observations of these people has been covered by general ethnobotanic studies conducted in the region. Some works can be mentioned such as those of Borthakur (1993, 1996), Islam (2000) Islam and Hasin (2003), Gogoi and Das (2003) Saikia and Nath (2003) and Singh et al. (2003). Borah et al.(2005) mentioned uses of eight plant species for the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases among the Deories from Upper Assam. Hazarika and Pandey (2010) reported 43 plant species used for the treatment of worm infestations among the Mishing and Deori communities in the region. However, ethnomedico-botanical information reported so far from this ethnic group in particular is known to be very

6 17 limited (Dutta and Nath, 1998). Likewise, in spite of having immense scope adequate attention has not so far been paid to validate the folklore medicinal plants used by the ethnic communities of Assam. 2.5 Cross-cultural Ethnomedico-botanical studies There are two major approaches in cross-cultural ethnobotanical studies. One is descriptive-analytical, while the other is correlational. The former involves comparison of ethnobotany of two or more societies, while the latter employs statistical measures to determine the degree of relationships between them. The descriptive analytical approach is much preferred option in cross-cultural ethnobotany (Nath and Bordoloi, 1991; Saklani and Jain, 1994; Jain and Lata, 1996; Goel and Rajendran, 1999; Begum and Nath, 2000). Anthropologists have also accepted, to a great extent, the utility of cross-cultural study for revealing similarities among the communities and for identifying exceptions to this. Such cross-cultural studies have been described by Murdock (1957), Moore (1961), Ford (1967) and Srivastava (1979). 2.6 Phytochemical survey Phytochemical survey of plants for therapeutically important classes of compounds like alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, caumarins, glycosides etc. has been considered as an important area of fundamental research owing to its relevance in providing clues for pharmacological evaluation of plant constituents and extracts besides helping in discovery of new plant sources for biologically active compounds. Large scale screening of such phytoconstituents from plants have been

7 18 reported from the countries like India (Maiti, 1968; Kapoor et al.,1969, 1971,1972, 1975; Saxena, 1975; Sharma et al.,1982; Khetwal et al., 1985; Rao et al., 1985; George et al., 1985; Suresh et al., 1995),USA (Smolenski et al., 1974, 1975), Sri Lanka (Sultanbawa et al., 1975), New Guinea (Hartley et al., 1973) and West Africa (Tackie et al.,1974). Qualitative and quantitative variation of such phytoconstituents depending upon the geographical variation of the species, stage of growth of the plants and part to part variations of phytoconstituents (Arnold et al., 1977; Tetanyi, 1978; Sood et al., 1983; Albasini et al., 1983; Jantan and Goh, 1992; Kaul et al., 1996; Nath et al., 1997 and Buchauer, 2000) have also been reported. However, in comparison to medicinal plants wealth of North East India, adequate attention in the area has not so far been paid.

Haryana-06 Delhi-07 Total disabled population Persons 455, , , ,886 13, ,454 Males 273, ,908 68, ,872 8, ,44

Haryana-06 Delhi-07 Total disabled population Persons 455, , , ,886 13, ,454 Males 273, ,908 68, ,872 8, ,44 INDIA-00 Jammu & Kashmir-01 Total disabled population Persons 21,906,769 16,388,382 5,518,387 302,670 229,718 72,952 Males 12,605,635 9,410,185 3,195,450 171,816 129,443 42,373 Females 9,301,134 6,978,197