Treatment of Trees (Vṛkṣāyurveda)

Having just laid out tanks and water-works (ch. 54), Varāhamihira turns to the gardens that should fringe them. This is the Vṛkṣāyurveda chapter — literally the "science of the life of trees," the arborist's counterpart to medicine for the human body. It is short (31 verses) but dense with practical horticulture: soil preparation, planting, grafting, watering schedules, the diagnosis and treatment of tree-diseases, fertilizer formulae given by exact weight, seed-treatments, and finally the lucky asterisms for planting. The root verses are [classical]; Bhaṭṭotpala's (Utpala's) commentary and the parallel verses he quotes from Sage Kāśyapa are [traditional]; M. R. Bhat's own notes are [modern: Bhat 1981].

Why a gardening chapter belongs here

Bhat frames the topic: arboriculture "was cultivated in ancient India" and "is closely connected with town-planning, house-building and construction of tanks." Earlier sages such as Kāśyapa and Parāśara laid down rules for which trees to plant in gardens, for grafting and transplantation, and for the diagnosis and treatment of the diseases of trees. Sixteen varieties of anūpaja trees (trees "born in watery tracts") are singled out in connection with transplantation and grafting. Bhat lists the later works that expand the subject — the Kṛṣiparāśara, the Abhilaṣitārthacintāmaṇi, the Viśvavallabha of Cakrapāṇimiśra, the Vṛkṣāyurveda of Surapāla, and the Upavanavinoda — which detail fertilizers for curing tree-diseases and improving yields (BS 55, p572). [modern: Bhat 1981]

The chapter's own opening rule ties gardens back to the previous chapter on tanks: since tanks and the like "do not look charming without shade on their sides, one ought to have gardens laid out on the banks of water" (BS 55.1, p572). Tanks and gardens are mutually beneficial — the water nourishes the trees, the trees shade and beautify the water. (Bhat cross-references BS 54.119 on shading the banks of tanks, and likens the result to the Brindavan Gardens at the Mysore dams.) [modern: Bhat 1981]

Preparing the soil — the sesamum treatment

A soft soil suits all varieties of trees. The first operation is a green-manure treatment: one should first sow sesamum (tila) in the ground, and when it comes into bloom, crush it and let it mingle with the soil. This is the very first treatment to be done for the soil before any cultivation (BS 55.2, p573).

Bhat explains the mechanism: the sesamum plants, cut into pieces at flowering and worked into the earth, become an excellent green manure that prepares the ground for further cultivation. There is also a diagnostic side to it — it was held that if the sesamum crop itself does not flourish in a field, nothing else could be grown there to advantage (BS 55.2, p573). [modern: Bhat 1981]

What to plant first, near houses

Certain auspicious trees should be planted at the outset, both in gardens and near houses: Ariṣṭa (Neem or soap-berry), Aśoka, Punnāga, and Śirīṣa trees, together with the Priyaṅgu creeper (BS 55.3, p573). These are the inaugural, lucky plantings — the same auspicious-tree logic that ch. 53 applies to the trees standing around a dwelling.

Grafting — the two methods

Grafting (transplantation of one tree's part onto another) is treated next. The chapter names the trees that take well to it: the jack tree, Aśoka, plantain (banana), Eugenia, lemon, pomegranate, grape vine, Pālīvata, Mātuluṅga (citron), and the jasmine creeper (BS 55.4, p573). Two techniques are given:

1. Branch-grafting: smear a branch with cowdung and transplant it onto the branch of another tree.
2. Cleft/wedge-grafting: cut off the trunk of a tree and set it like a wedge onto the trunk of another tree. (The junction where the two are joined must be covered over with a coating of mud.)

On the meaning of the second method there is a scholarly disagreement that Bhat reports faithfully. Utpala (the commentator) reads it as "uproot a tree and transplant a tree of a different type upon it." Bhat judges this is not what the author intended: he takes the author to mean that if a good tree has been uprooted, its trunk or branch can be grafted onto another tree of the same group. Bhat adds that cross-group grafting — getting jackfruit from one branch and mangoes from another of the same tree — "may be feasible in modern times," and notes the Abhilaṣitārthacintāmaṇi gives recipes for turning sour or bitter fruits sweet, a tree into a creeper, and the like (BS 55.4, p573–574). [modern: Bhat 1981]

Open question: the root verse, Utpala's gloss, and Bhat's reading give three different scopes for wedge-grafting (different species vs. same group). The chapter records the disagreement without settling it.

The seasons for grafting

The proper season depends on how developed the plant is (BS 55.5, p574):

• Plants not yet branched → graft in the Śiśira season (≈ February–March).
• Plants that have grown branches → graft in the Hemanta season (≈ December–January).
• Plants with large branches → graft in the rainy season (≈ August–September).

A procedural rule accompanies this: the original direction (orientation) of the branch that is cut off must be preserved when it is grafted — the cut piece is set facing the same way it grew. Utpala notes some scholars prefer a reading that would put the grafting at the beginning and middle of the monsoon, but Bhat rejects those readings on the authority of Sage Kāśyapa, whom Utpala quotes for the seasonal scheme above (BS 55.5, p574). [traditional]

Carrying grafted trees abroad

A graft can be transported to other countries and grafted there, provided the trees are first smeared from root to stem with a compound of ghee, andropogon (vetiver/uśīra), sesamum, honey, Viḍaṅga, milk, and cow-dung (BS 55.6, p574). Bhat notes the line can also be read to mean that trees so treated can simply be safely transplanted to another place; Utpala quotes a supporting verse, possibly from Sage Kāśyapa (BS 55.6, p574). [traditional]

The ritual of grafting

Before grafting, one should be clean and pure, and worship the tree with ablutions, sandal-paste, and the like, and only then perform the graft. Done so, the tree will thrive even with the very leaves with which it was grafted (BS 55.7, p575). The horticulture is wrapped in a small rite of purity and worship of the plant.

Watering the grafted trees

The transplanted (grafted) trees are watered on a seasonal schedule (BS 55.8, p575):

• Summer → water morning and evening, every day.
• Cold season → water on alternate days.
• Rainy season → water whenever the soil becomes dry.

The sixteen moist-soil (anūpaja) trees

The chapter then names the sixteen trees that grow in moist soil (the anūpaja trees referenced in the introduction): Eugenia (jambū), Bayas (or Bent), Vānīra, Nauclea orientalis, the Glomerous fig (udumbara), Arjuna, Bījapūra (citron), grape vine, lemon, pomegranate, Vañjula (spondias), Naktamāla (gray bonduc), Tilaka, jack, Timira, and Āmrātaka (BS 55.9, p575). Bhat cautions that the distinction between the soil-classes is not absolute — the author himself allows that trees usually found in moist soil may sometimes grow in other regions too (BS 55.9, p575). [modern: Bhat 1981]

Spacing between trees

How far apart should garden trees stand? The chapter grades the spacing (BS 55.10, p575):

• 20 cubits apart — very good (best).
• 16 cubits apart — moderate.
• 12 cubits apart — inferior.

The reason follows: trees grown too close, touching one another with their roots interlocked, are "tortured," and so do not yield fruit in full measure (BS 55.11, p575–576). Crowded roots compete and the crop suffers.

Diseases of trees and their treatment

The chapter now turns to vṛkṣa-cikitsā, the medicine of trees. Trees fall ill from cold weather, strong winds, and hot sun. The symptoms: their leaves turn pale-white, their sprouts grow scanty and sickly, their branches dry up, and their milk (sap) oozes out (BS 55.12, p576). Bhat notes that Cakrapāṇimiśra's Viśvavallabha (ch. VIII) holds that trees, like people, fall ill through the vitiation of the three humours — Wind, Bile, and Phlegm (vāta, pitta, kapha) — the same doṣa framework as human Āyurveda (BS 55.12, p576). [traditional]

The treatment once symptoms appear (BS 55.13, p576):

1. Clear the tree of ulcers and the like — whatever is colourless and wet — with a knife (the surgical debridement of the diseased part).
2. Apply a paste of Viḍaṅga, ghee, and silt (mud) to those cleaned parts.
3. Sprinkle them with water and milk.

Done thus, the tree will be freed of its disease.

A separate remedy for premature loss of fruit: when a tree's fruits are destroyed before ripening, it should be watered with milk that has been boiled and then cooled, mixed with horse-gram, black gram, green gram, sesamum, and barley. So treated, it will bear abundant flowers and fruits (BS 55.14, p576–577).

Fertilizer to increase yield (with weights)

For increasing the yield of flowers and fruits in trees, creepers, and shrubs, the chapter gives a precise compound to be sprinkled on constantly (BS 55.15, p577). The recipe, by weight:

• 1 āḍhaka (= 64 palas) of the powdered dung of goats and of sheep,
• 1 āḍhaka of sesamum powder,
• 1 prastha (= 16 palas) of wheat particles,
• 1 tulā (= 100 palas) of beef,
• 1 droṇa (= 256 palas) of water,

all kept (steeped) for seven nights. This quantity is the measure for a single tree. Bhat notes the commentator quotes verses defining these weights and measures (the pala / āḍhaka / prastha / tulā / droṇa system) (BS 55.15, p577). [modern: Bhat 1981]

Note: the chapter's freedom with non-vegetarian ingredients — beef here, and fish-, flesh-, and marrow-based treatments below — reflects the practical, pre-modern arborist's pharmacopoeia, not a dietary or ritual prescription.

Treatment of seeds

The author turns to the preparation of seeds before sowing. The general seed-treatment (BS 55.16, p577–578):

1. Soak all seeds in milk for ten days, taking them out each day with a hand smeared with ghee.
2. Then roll them many times in cow-dung.
3. Fumigate them with the flesh of deer and of hog.
4. Then, with flesh and hog's marrow, plant them in soil already prepared (by the sesamum treatment above).
5. Sprinkle with milk and water — and they will grow and bloom.

(Bhat is unsure whether the author literally means the seeds would sprout already accompanied by blossoms; he flags the curious wording (BS 55.16, p578).) [modern: Bhat 1981]

A striking individual case follows: even a tamarind seed will sprout when sprinkled with a compound of the flour of rice, black gram, sesamum, and wheat particles together with stale meat, and repeatedly fumigated with turmeric powder (BS 55.17, p578).

Making wood-apple (Bilva) seeds sprout

A detailed, multi-stage method is given for the stubborn wood-apple seed (BS 55.18–23, p578–579). First the soaking liquor — take eight roots/parts in all: the roots of Sārivā, myrobalan (āmalakī), Dhava, and Vāśikā (Justicia); and the leafy branches of Vetasa and Sūryavallī; the Śyāma-creeper; and Atimuktaka — boil them in milk, cool it, and soak the seeds in this liquid for the time of 100 beats (of the hand). Take them out and dry them in the sun daily for 30 days. Then sow as follows:

1. Dig a pit one cubit in diameter and twice as deep, fill it with milk and water, and burn the pit once it has dried.
2. Smear the pit with a mixture of honey, ghee, and ashes.
3. Fill it with mud to a height of 4 digits (aṅgulas).
4. Over that, fill it with the flour of black gram, sesamum, and barley.
5. Put mud over this again, to the same height (4 digits).
6. Again fill with the flour of black gram etc.
7. Pour on it an infusion of fish and water, then pound the whole until it becomes a thick mass.
8. Sow the seed at a depth of 4 digits, and sprinkle it with fish-water and flesh-water.

Soon a tendril with excellent sprouts will "cover the bower in a marvellous manner." (Utpala notes that Śyāma is, according to some, Trivṛt; Bhat flags two grammatical irregularities in the verse and explains that here "beat" means a beat for keeping musical time (BS 55.18–23, p579).) [modern: Bhat 1981]

The Aṅkola / Śleṣmātaka instantaneous-sprouting methods

Two more "wonder" seed-treatments close the technical section. First: any seed soaked a hundred times in a paste of Aṅkola (Alangium) fruit, or in its oil, or in a paste or oil of the Śleṣmātaka (Sebesten) fruit, will — when sown in soil mixed with hail — sprout instantaneously, its branches soon laden with fruit (BS 55.24, p579). (Utpala disputes the author's identification of one term, citing Amara against it.) [traditional]

Second, a method specific to the Śleṣmātaka (Sebesten) seed (BS 55.25, p579–580): a wise man should remove the shell of the seeds, soak them in water mixed with the slimy paste of Aṅkola (Alangium) fruits, and dry them in the shade — seven times over. Then rub them with buffalo dung and lay them in its dry dung. Sown thereafter in soil soaked with hail-water, they will bear fruit in a day. Bhat relays Utpala's gloss: the buffalo-dung-smeared seeds should be kept inside a heap of dry buffalo-dung in a pot until the contents are drenched by hail-water — Utpala construing karkā-jala as praśanipāta-jala (hail-water) here too (BS 55.25, p580). [traditional]

The asterisms for planting

The chapter closes by fixing the lunar mansions (nakṣatras) fit for planting trees. The asterisms prescribed by the Seers of transcendental wisdom (such as Garga) for planting are: the three Uttarās (Uttara-Phalgunī, Uttarāṣāḍhā, Uttara-Bhādrapadā), Rohiṇī, Anurādhā, Citrā, Mṛgaśirṣa, Revatī, Mūla, Viśākhā, Puṣya, Śravaṇa, Aśvinī, and Hasta (BS 55.31, p580). [traditional] (Utpala notes a variant reading of one word — śastāni for uktāni — without changing the list (BS 55.31, p580).)

This nakṣatra rule binds the arborist's craft back into jyotiṣa: even the planting of a garden has its auspicious moment in the sky, just as the founding of a house does in ch. 53.