India’s tales from long ago are helping scholars piece together the diverse flora that once covered the country’s present-day savannas almost a millennium ago, aiding modern climate preservation efforts.
Today, 10% of India and almost a third of all land on Earth is covered in grasslands and savannas, which are often assumed to be the remnants of ancient forests. The new work, recently published in People and Nature, casts doubt on those assumptions after researchers combed through Indian literature stretching back hundreds of years.
A Cross-Discipline Encounter
References to the plant life appear in many types of Indian literature, offering clues to what local inhabitants would have been familiar with from the world around them at the time. For example, the 13th-century Hindu saint Cakradhara wrote of the Acacia tree as a symbol of death and reincarnation.
“The take-home for me is how little things have changed,” said co-author Ashish Nerlekar of Michigan State University. “It’s fascinating that something hundreds of years old could so closely match what is around today and contrast so much with what people romanticize the past landscape to be.”
In a chance conversation, the archaeologist and study co-author, Digvijay Patil, mentioned to Nerlekar that he had noticed references to specific plants while searching for information on western India’s sacred sites in Sanskrit and Marathi texts. As a botanical researcher, Nerlekar recognized the references as corresponding to actual species found in the area’s savannas.
Exploring India’s Literary Past
After their conversation, the pair decided to investigate India’s rich history of songs, poems, and myths for any mention of wild plants and clues to their locations. They focused on works originating in the Marathi-speaking area, today part of the state of Maharashtra, which is characterized by grasslands.
Nerlekar says that in the popular mind and in official policy, the area has usually been viewed as a wasteland, the ruins of former great forests, destroyed by human activity during British rule. Due to this interpretation, the area is often a target for tree planting efforts designed to stem the tide of climate change.
However, the researchers say this is a misunderstanding of the region’s past, as their work identified 44 references to local plants dating back to the thirteenth century, two-thirds of which are species most commonly associated with savannas rather than forests.
Climate Misunderstandings
Accounts include an epic 16th-century poem that describes the area as empty and thorny, while a 15th-century account describes what appears to be Capparis divaricata, which still grows there today. Additionally, eight references to the desert-growing Acacia were found, particularly the Vachellia leucophloea.
“It’s a pretty iconic tree in the region, and it was common at that time also,” Nerlekar said.
Instead of lush forests, accounts from well before British rule describe flora remarkably similar to that which covers the region’s savannas today. Further evidence comes from recent analysis of fossilized pollen grains, which suggests that savanna-dwelling plant species were typical of the area even tens of thousands of years ago.
Preserving India’s Savannas
Therefore, Nerlekar argues that policy should instead focus on preserving savannas and grasslands rather than attempting to convert them into forests, which they have never been historically. India hosts over 200 unique plant species, many of which were only recently discovered, and many more of which may now be endangered.
“A lot of savanna biodiversity is also sacred, which means they have cultural value in addition to ecological value,” Nerlekar said.
While the goal of foresting the area may be to remove carbon, Nerlekar notes that savannas also absorb carbon dioxide while providing essential grazing land.
Nerlekar concludes by noting that, “These centuries-old stories provide us a rare glimpse into the past, and that the past was a savanna past, not a forested past.”
The paper, “Utilizing Traditional Literature to Triangulate the Ecological History of a Tropical Savanna,” appeared in People and Nature on November 25, 2025.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.