उपवनविनोद (आचार्य शार्ङ्गधर - वृक्षायुर्वेद, भू-जल संधान एवं उद्यान-विज्ञान सटीक)

SCIENCE OF ARBORI-HORTICULTURE IN ANCIENT INDIA 9
and partly in cities ; they are, however, not to be prohibited in villages and
spacious towns. The wise persons should avoid by all means the air
coming from them. Kharjjūra and Uhu trees are forbidden in camps, but
certainly not in villages and spacious towns. Trees like Champaka and rice
plants are equally beneficient in villages, cities and in camps. Sugarcane,
Aśoka, Śirīṣa, Kadamba are always productive of good. So also are Kacvī',
Haridrā, Ārdraka and Harītakī, both in villages and in towns. The air
coming from the Āmalakī tree is not always beneficient’.¹
Śukrāchāryya in his Śukranī'ti is more practical on the subject. His general
instruction on the point is : “one should lay out a fair garden to the left
of the dwelling house (IV. iv, 104). He should plant those trees which bear
good fruits (phalinah) very near the village (IV. iv, 103).” Then he gives
a long list of such phalinah trees in IV. iv, 95—102. His other general
instructions are to plant thorny trees (kanṭakinah) in forests (113-114), and
expansive trees, shrubs and creepers “in villages if domestic, and in forests, if
wild”² (123-124).
In this, as well as in the sections that follow, we find that in the treatment
of plants from every aspect utility is distinctly kept in view.
III. SELECTION OF SOILS
A more elaborate attention is paid to the topic of classification of soils
with characteristic flora in Charaka³ and Suśruta⁴.
Charaka divides land into three classes, namely, Jāṅgala, Anūpa and
Sādhāraṇa according to the nature of the soil (edaphic conditions) and
climate (climatic conditons). Thus :

1. Jāṅgala Region (literally dry places—plants xerophytes)—“The region
   called Jāṅgala is full of unobstructed open spaces, where a steady and
   dry wind blows, pervaded with expansive mirages, rivers and rivulets scarce,
   abounding in (artificial) wells (i.e. scarcity of water), also abounding in dry
   and rough sands and big sandy particles (kankurs). 6 & 7.
   Suśruta describes this region as “the country which presents a flat surface,
   and whose dull monotony is enlivened here and there by scanty growths of
   thorny shrubs, and tops of a few isolated hills and knolls, and in which the
   waters from springs and wells, accumulated during the rains, become nearly
   1 Chap. 102, Śrīkrishna Janma khaṇḍa.
   2 S. B. H. 13, pp. 165-166.
   3 Kalpasthāna I, Madanaphala Kalpa, 6, 7—9 ; Eng. translation, Fasc. LXI, Lesson I, pp. 1917—1918.
   4 Sūtrasthāna, Chap. 35, 34—42. Eng. translation by K. L. Vishagratna, Vol. II, pp. 325—326 (Calcutta, 1911).
   2