India has one of the richest plant medical cultures in the world. In the oral traditions local communities in every ecosystem from the trans Himalayas down to the coastal plains have discovered the medical use of thousands of plants found locally in their ecosystem. The tremendous passion for the medicinal plants made the people to use them for a wide range of health related applications from a common cold to memory improvement and treatment of poisonous snake bites to a cure for muscular dystrophy and the enhancement of body's general immunity.

Ancient Indian literatures incorporate a remarkably broad definition of medicinal plants and considers 'all' plants as potential sources of medicinal substances ("Jagatyevananaoushadham na kincit vidyate dravyam vasannaanartha yogayoh" - Source: Ashtanga hirdaya. SU.9-10). But, at a practical level, only those plants whose medicinal use has already been discovered for human or veterinary application are considered "medicinal". There are estimated to be around 8000 species of medicinal plants that are used in different systems of Indian medicine.

Medicinal plant has traditionally occupied an important position in the socio cultural, spiritual and medicinal arena of rural and tribal lives of India. The remarkable fact is that it is still a living tradition. This is borne out by the fact that there still exist around a million traditional, village-based carriers of herbal medicine systems in the form of traditional birth attendants, bonesetters, herbal healers and wandering monks. Apart from these specialised carriers there are millions of women and elders who have traditional knowledge of herbal-remedies and of food and nutrition.

Complementing the village based carriers, there are around 6 lakh licensed, registered medical practitioners of the codified systems of Indian Medicine like Ayurvedic, Siddha, Unani and the Tibetan system of medicine.  These codified systems have sophisticated theoretical foundation and there are hundreds of medical tests in the form of Nighantus (Lexicons) and texts on Bhaisajya Kalpana (pharmacy) that specifically deal with plants and plant's products.

There are estimated to be around 25000 effective plant based formulations used in folk medicine and known to rural communities all over India and around 10000 designed formulations are available in the indigenous medical texts.

Traditionally medicinal plants have been used for human, veterinary and plant health.  There are medical texts that deal with the treatment of cows, horses, elephants and birds.  There are also texts on subjects like Vrksh-ayurveda that deal with use of plants for controlling pests, treating plant diseases and as bio-fertilizers.

It may be worth observing that the knowledge of the Indians about plants and plant-products is not based on the application of western system of knowledge or scientific approaches to natural products like chemistry or pharmacology.  It is based on a sophisticated, indigenous knowledge category called "Dravya Gun Shastra".  Unfortunately due to lack of rigorous cross cultural studies and in the absence of a well accepted methodology for such cross cultural studies, there exists no  "reliable bridge" to cross over from chemistry and pharmacology to "Dravya Gun Shastra" or vice-versa, although functional links have been established.

Count of medicinal plants usage across different systems of Indian Medicine