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Natural history in India has a long heritage with a recorded history going back to the Vedas. 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.〔Schiebinger, Londa and Claudia Swan (Eds.) 2004 Colonial Botany Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World. 352 pages. University of Pennsylvania〕 Natural history in India was also enriched by older traditions of conservation, folklore, nature study and the arts.〔Archer, Mildred & W. G. Archer (1955) Natural history paintings. In Indian painting for the British 1770–1880, pp. 91–98. Oxford, Oxford University Press.〕 ==Vedic times== 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.〔Rangarajan, M. (2001) India's Wildlife History, pp 2.〕 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.〔Rangarajan, M. (2001) India's Wildlife History, pp 3.〕 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.〔Kramrisch, S. The representation of nature in early Buddhist sculpture. Rupam 8. 1921.〕 The Tamil literature of the ''Sangam'' period, depicts a classification of land into 5 eco-types; ranging from the littoral to wet paddy fields.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Indian natural history」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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