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Biologically active compounds from plant sources have had a dramatic impact in medicine, such as quinine for treatment of malaria; reserpine for controlling hypertension; cocaine as a muscle relaxant; and vincristine for treating children with leukaemia. Tropical plants have an enormous, untapped potential to the world flora has been examined for pharmacologically active compounds, but with the ever increasing danger of plants becoming extinct, there is real risk ...
This book examines, for the first time, those threads in Indian thought that present a prolife view of plants. Using texts from Vedic, Hindu, Jain and Buddhist traditions, the author argues that there is strong support in early materials that plants are thought to be alive, to be sentient (and have the one sense of touch), to feel pleasure and pain, to have an interior consciousness, and to be bearers of Karma. Moreover, while plants are traditionally thought to ...