Indian natural history
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 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. 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 with fauna.
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.The Mauryas firstly looked at forests as a resource. For them, the most important forest product was the elephant. Military might in those times depended not only upon horses and men but also battle-elephants; these played a role in the defeat of Seleucus, Alexander's governor of the Punjab. The Mauryas sought to preserve supplies of elephants since it was more cost and time-effective to catch, tame and train wild elephants than raise them. Kautilya's Arthashastra contains not only maxims on ancient statecraft, but also unambiguously specifies the responsibilities of officials such as the Protector of the Elephant Forests:
The Mauryas also designated separate forests to protect supplies of timber, as well as lions and tigers, for skins. Elsewhere the Protector of Animals also worked to eliminate thieves, tigers and other predators to render the woods safe for grazing cattle.
The Mauryas valued certain forest tracts in strategic or economic terms and instituted curbs and control measures over them. They regarded all forest tribes with distrust and controlled them with bribery and political subjugation. They employed some of them, the food-gatherers or aranyaca to guard borders and trap animals. The sometimes tense and conflict-ridden relationship nevertheless enabled the Mauryas to guard their vast empire.
The Mauryan emperor Ashoka, embraced Buddhism in the latter part of his reign and brought about significant changes in his style of governance. He provided protection to fauna and even relinquished the royal hunt. He was perhaps the first ruler to advocate conservation measures for wildlife and even had rules inscribed in stone edicts. The edicts proclaim that many followed the king's example in giving up the slaughter of animals; one of them proudly states:
However, the edicts of Ashoka and the contents of Arthashastra reflect more the desire of rulers than actual events; the mention of a 100 'panas' fine for poaching deer in royal hunting preserves shows that rule-breakers did exist. The legal restrictions conflicted with the freedoms exercised by the common people in hunting, felling, fishing and setting fires in forests.
Chalukya period
Arguably, the best treatise on hunting in Sanskrit was the Manasollasa composed in the times of the Chalukyas, the 12th century rulers of the Deccan. Another work from this period was Mriga Pakshi Shastra, a treatise on mammals and birds written in the 13th century by a Jain poet, Hamsadeva. The accuracy of the content has however been critiqued by many including Salim Ali.Mughal period
The Moghul emperors not only led a leisurely life but also pursued gardening and art. They decorated their gardens with their private zoos and hired artists to paint many subjects including plants and animals. Hunting and falconry were also extensively practised. They also employed scribes and were among the first to document their observations of nature in India. The foremost of the observers were Jehangir and Babur .Babur
The notes of Babur for instance indicate the former distribution of the rhinoceros as far west as the Indus:Salim Ali provides more details of this incident:
Jahangir
also kept detailed records of his hunts. From the ages of 12 to 48, 28,532 animals had been hunted with 17,167 by himself. These included 86 tigers, 9 bears, leopards, foxes, otters and hyaenas, 889 – blue bulls and 35 mhaka. Salim Ali suggests that the mhaka must refer to swamp deer.Salim Ali in his 1927 article The Moghul emperors of India and naturalists and sportsmen notes:
Ustad Mansur, a 17th-century court artist of Jehangir, was the first man to accurately paint the Siberian crane. The dodo was brought to Jehangir's court via Portuguese controlled Goa and an unsigned painting of it in the Hermitage Museum is attributed to Mansur.
Pre-colonial period
Hortus indicus malabaricus was the oldest regional flora for any part of the world and was published in India in the 18th century by the Dutch East India Company through the work of Hendrik van Rheede.Colonial period
With cabinets of curiosity already popular in European homes, trade and movement of natural history specimens around the world grew with the growth of shipping. The East India Company was quick to note the interest in natural curiosities and set up the first museum in London. The collections grew rapidly. With the establishment of colonies in India, there were also attempts to set up menageries in India. An early attempt was the Barrackpore menagerie established by Richard Wellesley in 1801 through the Institution for Promoting the Natural History of India.The Indian Civil Services, whose selection procedure included tests in the knowledge of botany, zoology and geology, brought many British naturalists to India. Some collected species on behalf of British and other European naturalists and museums, while others carried out their studies entirely on their own. Historians have linked the birth of museums to colonialism. These massive collections and their documentation led to the production of numerous works including The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma series.
The earliest effort to document the fauna of India was perhaps that of Thomas Hardwicke, a military officer in India who hired local artists to produce a huge collection of illustrations of Indian animals. This was subsequently studied by John Edward Gray and led to the publication of Illustrations of Indian zoology: chiefly selected from the collection of Major-General Hardwicke and consisted of 202 colour plates.
A large and growing number of naturalists with an interest in sharing observations led to the founding of the Bombay Natural History Society in 1883.
During this era many Indian princes also took to large scale hunting and together with British hunters, many species of wildlife were hunted to near extinction while some species such as the Cheetah became extinct.