The jungle and the aroma of meats: an ecological theme in Hindu medicine

In classical Ayurvedic medicine, the jungle is the dry land of the Punjab and the Delhi Doab, an open vegetation of thorny shrubs. The polarity of dry lands and wet lands framed not only the whole Ayurvedic materia medica, but also the more general conception of a cosmic physiology governed by Agni (the sun) and Soma (the dispenser of the rain). Clearing the land and draining the body were two aspects of one and the same art of managing the transactions of all sorts of vital fluids, saps, juices, savors and humors. Medicine in the context of thought and practice associated with the jungle was, and still is in modern India, a kind of agriculture.