Reports also indicate that veterinary science is a very ancient science in In-dia. A classical work on the treatment of elephant is Gajayurveda by Palakapya, an ancient sage contemporaneous with king Ramapada ruler of Angadesa. Aswa sastra (Aswayurveda) deals with method-ologies for treating horses. Salihotra is supposed to be the first propagator of this science. In Agnipurana there is a chap-ter on the treatment of cattle. Susrutha described fishes based on their morphol-ogy and locomotion. The concept of ahimsa became deep rooted in Jaina-Budha period. Abhayaranyas (national parks) were established for the first time to project wild animals. Kautilya in Arthasastra described various methods of fish culture and capture.
In post Vedic literature nature and living organisms were narrated beauti-fully. Though animals were classified into various categories in Atharva veda and Taittiriyasamhita, a more or less sci-entific approach was followed in Chadogyo-panishath in which animals are classified into Jeevana or jarayuja (those born live), Udbhija (those formed by bud-ding) and Andaja (those formed by hatch-ing from eggs).
In Manusmrithi organisms were categorised into sthavara (mobile) and jangama (immobile) and the latter was grouped in jarayuja, andaja and daswetha
(those formed from the heat and mois-ture of earth). The great Indian philoso-pher Prasasthapada classified animals generally into ayonija (asexual) and yonija (sexual).
Development of embryos also aroused interest among Vedic Indians. Probably Garbhopanishath is the first book in the world dealing with human development.
Susrutha and Charaka believed that fer-tilized eggs carry the primitive form of all the organisms. They also suggested trans-mission of hereditory characters. The hy-potheses forwarded by Charaka and Susrutha 1,600 to 1,800 years ago with-out even the support of proper experi-ments could be compared to the Darwin's theory of evolution.
The ideas framed by observing nature and living organism were documented in the Middle Ages. In his book Manasikollasa King Somasekhara de-scribed sport fishing in a separate chap-ter. Famous Indian Ichthyologist Hora opined that this book is unique even now.
Mrgapakshisastra by Hamsadeva, pro-tege of king Saundadeva (13th century AD) was the only book in this period deal-ing exclusively with Zoology. It deals with Zoology in 1712 verses describing the characteristics of birds and animals.
Mughal emperors were expert
hunt-ers; they had horses, dogs and kites to help them in hunting. The biographies of Mughal emperors show their love to-wards nature and living organisms.
Akbar hunted nearly 9,000 cheetahs and ironically, no cheetahs remain in India today. Many mughal emperors kept pri-vate zoos.
Animal husbandry was well devel-oped during Mughal period. The breed-ing was undertaken for elephant, cam-els, ox, horses, buffaloes, cow, goat and poultry. Jahangir in his book Tuzuki Jahangiri explained experiments in breeding animals. He was also interested in storing that information about the animals he saw in the form of paintings.
Dodo, the extinct Mouritian bird also appeared in the paintings of his period.
Zoological investigations became more scientific by 18th century, i.e., af-ter the invasion of Europeans. However, Zoology was not as much developed as Botany during this period. Asiatic Soci-ety and Bombay Natural History SociSoci-ety pioneered zoological investigations.
General Wellesly started a college at Fort William under the supervision of Hamilton-Buchanan by 19th century for studying animals.
The first comprehensive volume deal-ing with the fauna of India was published by W. T. Branford and his colleagues in Table 1
Zoology books published during 19th century from India
Sl Name of Book Author Y e a r
No.
1. Catalog of mammals of Maharashtra Waltor Eliot 1839
2. Catalog of Birds E. Blyth 1852
3. Mammals E. Blyth 1863
4. Birds of India T. C. Jerdan 1862-63
5. Stray Feathers A. O. Hume 1873-88
6. The Fishes of India Francis Day 1875-78
7. Game Bird of India, Burma and Ceylon Marshall 1879-81
8. Indian Lepidoptera Hevinston and Moore 1879-88
9. Butterflies of India, Burma and Ceylon Marshall and De Nicenilla 1882-90 10. Natural History of the Mammalia of Sterndale 1884
India and Ceylon
11. Avifauna of British India Murray 1888-90
7 7 7 between 1888 and 1891. Investigators such as W. Theobald (molluscs, amphib-ians and snakes), S. Benson (molluscs), I Hunter (molluscs), G. Neveel (estuarine molluscs), H. Godwin Austin (birds), G.
E. Dobson (mammals), McClelland (fishes), A. L. Adams (mammals), Jerdon (birds and mammals), A. O. Hume (birds), Hamilton-Buchanan (mainly fishes), Rondon (bears), R. C. Roten (rodents), Moore, Elvis etc. (Butterflies), Anderson (rats) and Walsh (spiders and ants) con-tributed to the understanding of faunal elements in India.
The first authentic book on the fish fauna of India was that by Sir Francis Day published during 1875-78. Investigations on the marine ecosystem with the help of research vessel investigators under the leadership of Lt. Colonel Alcock brought to light several marine organisms, par-ticularly corals and crustaceans. He pub-lished the research finding in his book
"Materials for a Carcinological Fauna of India" in 6 volumes. Even now this re-mains as a reference book to study the crabs of Indian Ocean.
Some of the publications from India dealing with Zoology published during 19th century are listed in Table below.
In the modern era biological sciences underwent drastic transformation and now it is not just Botany and Zoology alone but collusion of various subjects such as physics, chemistry and technol-ogy. In the post independent period many individuals and institutions in India started investigating biological sciences in detail. Green revolution, white revolution and blue revolution yielded good results. Yet there are handicaps as even the biological diver-sity of the country in some ecosystems remain unrecorded. Further, the qual-ity of original research in many fields re-main sub-standard.
Since independence, India is trying to develop a modern nation and hence there is need for developing science and technology in the right direction. The present education systems fail to project the rich scientific heritage of India. The foundation of our education should be based on this culture and heritage. At the same time do not consider that everything worthwhile in modern science was already achieved by the ancient sages of the Vedas. For us the destiny is far away and for reaching the goal we have to take firm steps, and the responsibility is now with the students.
Modern Science asserts through tech-niques such as carbon dating that agri-culture was started by man during the neolithic age. Neolithic age is just ten thousand years old. It is an indisputed fact that agriculture was a factor which exerted decisive influence on human civilisation. It was agriculture which in-duced man to reside permanently at one place. It provided him the opportunity for rest and thinking which proved helpful for many other inventions. All research studies on the subject indicate that it was with the beginning of agriculture that domestic life, art and culture, sci-ence and so on originated and devel-oped. But it is on the question of where such a settlement around agriculture was first established, that we have to make a digression.
Historians of science claim that signs of the most ancient agriculture were ob-tained from a township named’ Jasno’
lying between the present day Iran and north-eastern Iraq. The antiquity as-signed by them to the farming in this hilly region situated in the upper reaches of the Tygris is between 9000 to 1100 years. Later research studies have shown that this community moved later to the Tygris -Euphretes valley which was more suited for farming. It was these people that subsequently laid the foun-dation for the Mesopotamian civilisation.
The collection of maize grains obtained from the Okabo caves indicates that the foundation for a flourishing agricultural civilisation had been laid in Mexico also during the same period. There is a
conjucture that a group of people had reached America crossing the sea,centuries before Columbus set foot on the continent. If the fact that the pe-culiar civilisation of the Aztees of Mexico and the Mayans characterised by wor-ship of the sun and other forces of na-ture bears pronounced similarity with the customs and traditions of the Hin-dus is taken into account,it could not be wrong to infer that their Asian forefa-thers are none but Indians. Certain evi-dences examined recently go on to con-firm this inference. To migrate from Asia to America, there should be arrange-ments for long navigation. With view to finding an answer to this question of how it became possible in very ancient Aimer,the Norwegian adventurer. Thor Heardal ventured upon a daring journey across the sea, Christened Ra Expediction. The sailors numbering seven started in raft made of papaya stems from the Egyptian port of Safi with the help of ocean currents alone reached the American shore safely. The Ra expediction proved that the ancient people could conduct sea voyages suc-cessfully from Asian-African coasts to the American continent.
The chromosome structure of the cot-ton plant is another proof of very ancient Asian-American connection. The first question of hybrids brought about by cen-tral hybridization of different species of plants would often be sterile. The rea-son for this is that the species will differ in their chromosome structure (gene structure). But when the chromosome