Sri Bharatamata

Ashtottaram 88

 

88) OṀ AUSHADHĪ GUṆA BHŪMYAINAMAH:

           OṀ (AUM) -AU-SHA-DHII- GU-ṆA- BHOO- MYAI- NA-- MA- HA

 

          (Aushadhih: means-Plant, herb; Guṇam: means- Attribute, quality)

 

 

 

 

 

Agriculture is our nation's symbol. It is the back bone of our culture. It is the back bone of India. No matter how much infatuation our Indians have toward materialism, money and technical progress, the breath of our nation is agriculture. Imitating the foreign cultures and jumping up and down that we are progressing is not a useful thing for the nation. Any where we travel across the country side of our nation, either in a bus or a train, we see green fertile lands on either side and it is so pleasant to watch that scenery. We see people on bullock carts with their crops, sugar canes and some carrying hay bundles on their head, especially during 'Sankrānṫi' festival time, and it looks so pleasant to watch. We see all kinds of tall trees especially the palm trees, coconut trees, standing tall and it looks like they are waving at us saying good bye on our journey. You have to have a mind-set to appreciate the nature and you don't have to take vacations to enjoy these sceneries.

 

People who live busy life in big cities, don't have the luxury of enjoying our country side agriculture. So, they have no personal experience of this. Our main staple is rice in the south and wheat (roti) in the north. But still we depend on our agriculture for our main food. In olden days, they used to estimate somebody's wealth based on their fertile land, their cattle and other produce. Because everything we get from the cattle is useful for our household starting from the milk in the morning, rice, vegetables and all our snacks and sweets are based on flour, milk, sugar and ghee (clarified butter). We feed our cattle with hay, grains and the lentils. Without farmers, farming, cattle and plants, our life comes to a halt. From morning till night we depend on our farmers and agriculture, we don't thank them or treat them right which is a shameful thing because the energy we get to move around comes from our food which comes from the agriculture. We used to use plants and herbs in so many ways and our grand and great grand parents know that very well.

During Vedic times, farmers and farming was given utmost respect and importance and now with pseudo-westernization, every Indian thinks it's 'cool' to dress and behave like westerners, but they don't realize, how pathetic that is! To worship God with leaves, flowers, fruits and even to perform abhishekam (ceremonial bath to the gods) other than the water, we use milk, ghee, sugar, honey, fruit juices and they all come from agriculture, from our cattle and paddy.

 

Our nation's back bone is our agriculture and every Indian must realize this and my effort here is to re-educate the past glory of our wonderful land and stop infatuation with pseudo-western culture.

 

The land whose back bone is agriculture is our Bhārata bhūmi, -'Aushadhī Guṇa Bhūmi'.