Pankaj Oudhia on use of Rudraksh in Agriculture: Manuscripts from Medicinal Plant Database

Abstract

Since year 1990 Pankaj Oudhia is writing on various aspects of Biodiversity and Traditional Healing. The regular writing of more than two decades resulted in documents worth millions of pages. Very small part of these documents is online so far. The present series is an effort to represent excerpts of these documents available in Pankaj Oudhia’s Medicinal Plant Database at pankajoudhia.com

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In the year 1994 I got opportunity to meet and interact with the Rudraksh faith Healer from {{Rajasthan}e} state. He was in {{Raipur}e} on invitation to give lectures on importance of [[Rudraksh]e976] and also to spread Rudraksh Jal on different crops. At that time I was studying Agriculture and curious to know about his experiments. I visited with him to many cities of {{Chhattisgarh}e} including {{Durg}e}, {{Bhilai}e}, {{Bilaspur}e}, {{Ambikapur}e} etc..  During stay with him I observed ten types of solutions. Every solution is used for different purposes. The solution for general health of field crops was in large amount. These solutions are in concentrated form and few buckets solution were given to farmers in order to add it in large amount of water for spraying in field. Although he refused to inform much about it but claimed that these solutions are having Rudraksh seeds as main ingredient and he was using it in form of leachate, decoction and extract for different purposes. During visits he treated agricultural crops in order to promote its growth, in {{Dhamtari}e} region it was spread in [[rice]e1574] fields having severe infestation of [[yellow stem borer]e77061] and [[Green leaf hopper]e366017], in {{Kanker}e} the same procedure was repeated on rice crop, in {{Bastar}e} he visited to Asna and Kurandi and treated the medicinal plant garden with these solutions, in {{Ambikapur}e} he applied solutions on old [[Bar]e6123] tree. Finally he handed over a special solution for [[rose]e1872] plants in my home garden. I applied it with full faith. As these were not scientific trials no one knows that up to what extent these treatments were useful but I was having full confidence in these treatments.  Later when I discussed it with my Guru Shri Vishal Bharat, he informed that he uses leachate of Rudraksh seeds in order to enrich [[Tulsi]e243683] plants in his home garden with medicinal properties. His method was very simple. One seed is dipped in a cup of water overnight and next morning leachate collected was applied on Tulsi plants. He further informed that the rich Traditional Healers of {{Orissa}e} region are using Rudraksh in this way in order to enrich many rare herbs like Bhramarmar. His source of this knowledge was interactions with the Traditional Healers during his job as forester.  He refused to comment on methods of Rudraksh faith Healer.

When I started my [[Allelopathic]g25170] experiments as part of my post-graduate studies I selected varieties of herbs mostly [[weeds]g24116]. Very soon I realized that one type of leachate or extract never performs in same pattern in all types of herbs. Hence it is wrong to claim a single herb as panacea of all troubles in nature.  During visits to forests to meet the Traditional Healers I got similar information from them. At that time I was trying to learn Traditional Allelopathic Knowledge from them. They made it very clear that it is not easy task to understand Allelopathic arrangements of Mother Nature.  I wrote to Rudraksh faith Healer with my objections. As usual in young age we readily hurt the feeling of any one considering us a great researcher without knowing the in depth knowledge of others. It is wrong but very common in young age.  In response he wrote to me with calm words and sent few solutions for trial. As it was not mentioned in my synopsis my project guide refused to conduct the trial on these solutions. At that time for observations I was staying in lab 24 hours. I decided to test these solutions on germination and seedling vigor selected crops. I got surprising results. In mean time I visited to National Research Center for weed science, {{Jabalpur}e} and informed about these results. The senior researchers as well as director said that go for chemical analysis of solutions in order to know the contents and earn billions from it. I contacted the faith healer again and surprised to know that it was Traditional knowledge of that region. He was not charging fees for spreading this knowledge. I decided to protect these solutions from the researchers eager to exploit it for commercial purposes. Also as second important decision I planned to conduct new experiments to see its real effects. I also decided to use all parts of this tree in different combinations. As Rudraksh is rare tree and it was hard to get all parts even by paying high cost. When I started professional consultancy work for earning bread and butter after completion of my studies I got this golden opportunity. One of my clients was owner of Rudraksh plantation. He supplied all parts with condition to provide a copy of research results to him. I agreed. At that time I was having large number of farmers growing over 50 types of Indian medicinal and aromatic crops. They were not having organic alternatives and were in search of new tools. They permitted for trials and as result I got opportunities to try Rudraksh on different crops.      

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