Interactions with Traditional Healers, Collectors and Growers of Chhattisgarh, India associated with Medicinal Herb Dhikuar (Aloe vera)

Research Note - Pankaj Oudhia
© 2001,2002,2003 Pankaj Oudhia - All Rights Reserved

Although Aloe vera is not indigenous to India and Chhattisgarh but as exotic herb the natives have welcomed and adopted this herb and this is the reason Aloe holds a reputed position as ethnomedicine. In Chhattisgarh, few decades back Aloe was present in every home garden and also grew naturally in dense forests but due to heavy demand of Aloe based herbal products its availability in natural habitat is decreasing rapidly and today it is present in isolated patches of Chhattisgarh.

Botanical differences among three major species of Aloe
Characteristics	Aloe	Aloe	Aloe
	barbadensis syn	socotrina	spicata
	Aloe vera
1) Stem	Woody, simple, cylindrical, short	Woody, straight, 1.5 foot high and more, naked below, where it is stongly marked with the scars of leaves	Stem 3-4 feet high, as thick as man's arm
2) Leaves	Fleshy, amplexicaul, first spreading, then ascending, lanceolate, glaucous-green, flat above, convex below, armed with hard distant reddish spines perpendicular to the margin; a little mottled with darker colour, the paranchyma slightly coloured brown.	Amplexicaul, ascending, ensiform, green, curved inwards at the point, convex below rather concave above, marked with numerous small white marginal serratures, the parenchyma abounding in a bright brownish-yellow juice	Leaves thick, fleshy, broad at the base, gradually narrowing to the point, channelled, full 2 feet long, distantly toothed, with a few white spots, their parenchyma almost colourless.
3) Flowers	Spike cylindrical ovate, flowers at first erect, then spreading, afterwards pendulous, yellow, not longer than the stamens	Raceme cylindrical, unbranched, flowers scarlet at the base, pale in the middle, green at the point, stamens unequal, 3 of them longer than the flowers.	Spike a foot long, very compact, with the flowers companulate and horizontal. The three petals broader, ovate, obtuse, white with a triple green like, the sepals narrower, less concave; stamens longer than the perianth, flowers are filled with honey
4) Origin	The East Indies and Barbary	Islands of Socotra	Interior of the Cape of Good Hope

Last year I have noted its presence in Rengakhar forests of Chhattisgarh. From last two to three years, its commercial cultivation have started. But unfortunately, the growers are purchasing it from metros like Mumbai and Pune at very high rates. Once abundant now the Chhattisgarh forests are empty as far as Aloe is concerned. There is a need to study the reasons responsible for this fast depletion of Aloe in the region. As stated earlier, few decades back Aloe was an essential component of every home garden. The housewives were aware of its unique healing properties.

Common Indian Names of Aloe vera
Languages/Regions	Names
1) Gujarati	Kadvi-Nahani Kunvar
2) Hindi	Ghikumari, Kumari, Guarpatha, Kuvarpatha
3) Kanarese	Kattali, Lolisara
4) Marathi	Korphad, Korkand
5) Sanskrit	Kshurmallika, Kanya, Kapila, Kumari

For Traditional Healers Aloe is a valuable plant and they are among them who are worried because of this over exploitation. Unfortunately, the Aloe under cultivation in Chhattisgarh is not getting good prices. This is really surprising. According to the national buyers herbs collected from natural forests are not only more effective but also they are very cheap because the cost of cultivation is not involved. In this article I am trying to present a brief description of my experiences and interaction with Traditional Healers, collectors and growers with this herb.

Most of the Traditional Healers have gained medicinal knowledge about Aloe from their forefathers. Many of them says that their forefather have gained this knowledge from the visitors coming from different parts of India. The Traditional Healer of Dhamtari district informed me that there are two types of Aloe present in Chhattisgarh. One is sweet tasted and other with bitter taste. But during my survey, I have noted no morphological and botanical differences in these so called two types. According to the native of Narharpur, who is having rich traditional medicinal knowledge about herbs, the taste depend upon the edaphic factors and micro environment. He told me the Aloe found in rocky areas taste sweet. I am yet not sure about this. His observation need scientific evaluation. In many parts of Chhattisgarh, the sweet tasted types are used as vegetable. For Traditional Healers both sweet and bitter tasted types are equal in terms of medicinal properties. It is common belief in Chhattisgarh, that the presence of this plant in home garden cause disputes in family. That is why it is planted in boundaries. I am not agree with this belief.

To find out the scientific reason behind this belief, I planed to conduct a small survey. During this survey, I tried to ask the natives particularly the senior members of the society for possible reason why it is suggested to plant Aloe outside the home garden or as fence plant. I got many surprising answers. Most of respondents said that Aloe is a snake attractant plant and in order to keep the snakes away from home it is necessary to plant it outside. As the natives are well aware of its uses as medicinal and culinary herb, they do not want to root out this herb from garden. In the list of snake attractant plants or snake related plants, I have not found the name of Aloe. During 1999-2000 when I was standing in Aloe field at the farm of Arvind Agriculture, Durg my field workers informed me that it is not possible for them to perform hand weeding operation. The temperature goes over 45 degree centigrade. During this harsh time, very few vegetation remain on ground. As Aloe plants are xerophytic in nature they grow well in summer. The basal fleshy portion and its dense population are good shelter for these snakes. Whether there is any symbiotic relationship between snakes and Aloe or not ? I am not sure, but during summer I always avoid to root out these plants from fields for observations.

According to the Traditional Healers of Bastar, many herbs like Sarpgandha (Rauvolfia serpentina) helps in repelling away the snakes, this is the reason many Aloe growers prefer to grow a single line of Sarpgandha in Aloe fields in order to repell away the snakes. I personally feel that there is a need for scientific evaluation. We are talking about the aloe in home gardens. Snake and Aloe - This may be the one reason. One Ayurvedic practioner from Raipur informed me during this survey that as the yellow juice from the base of leaves is harmful to human beings specially to children, it is advised to plant this herb outside the garden. Although I am not aware but according to my parents during my childhood, the Aloe was present in our home garden. Chhattisgarh people are well aware of its miracle healing properties. you will be surprised to know that at present you can rarely find any home garden with Aloe herb. Why this has happened ? One of the major reasons I have found is its speed of multiplication. According to my father even a single plant multiplies very rapidly and within few months its growth cover whole garden. The old generation is now surprising to know that the young generation is investing lot of money for ommercial cultivation of this weedy plant . According to the Traditional Healer of Bagbahera, the more the spines on Aloe leaves, more will be the medicinal potential. In order to confirm this reality, I have collected samples of all varieties (spiny and spineless) from natural habitat and with the help of my biochemist friend performed a laboratory test. We have cal content. Also many Traditional Healers are not ready to accept this finding. According to them, all types are same. I feel as ethnobotanist it is my duty to observe and document all the findings whether they are true or not.

I always try to confirm these findings from other traditional healers and also work hard to find the science behind it with the help of seniors, ancient literatures, friends etc. A lot have been written about this useful plant in ancient and modern literatures. In Chhattisgarh it is popularly known as Dhikuar whereas in Hindi its names are Guarpatha, Ghrikumar, Kumari, Kuvarpatha etc. In reference literatures I have found this brief description. It is a perennial herb; stem short thick, somewhat divided; Leaves sessile, crowded, lanceolate, pale-green, fleshy, margins spiny (many spineless types are common in Chhattisgarh). Scape longer than the leaves, scaly, simple or branched; Flowers in dense racemes; perianth cylendric; pendulous and yellow. According to Ayurveda, it is bitter, cooling purgative,alterative, fattening, tonic, aphrodisiac, anthelmintic,alexiteric and useful in eye troubles, tumours, spleen enlargement, liver complaints, vomiting, bronchitis, skin diseases, biliousness, asthma, jaundice, stangury and ulcers. In my allelopathic studies, I have found this herb useful for organic farming. I have tested its aqueous extracts on different harmful insects, diseases and weeds. In many crops, I noted its stimulatory allelopathic effects. In order to manage the termite problem, the natives of Chhattisgarh use this plant. It is a common traditional practice to plant this herb on termitarium in order to repell away the termites. I have found the aqueous extract of whole plant effective against termite.

We have successfully tested this effect on Safed Moosli (Chlorophytum borivilianum) crop. It is also common practice to plant this herb around the common herbs grown for commercial purpose in order to prevent the attack of insects and diseases. For the collectors of forest produce, the Aloe is becoming one of the most wanted plants but they are aware of this depleting herb. The collector of Dhamtari says that the buyers from Kolkata are ready to pay any price for natural Aloe herb. Once when the collector tried to supply the Aloe from cultivated origin the buyer (after chemical testing) refused to purchase it. For state planners working on bio diversity plan of state, these collectors can play vital and important role in providing a detailed information about the natural occurrence and exploitation status of herbs.During my ethnomedico surveys I always try to sit for long time specially at night with these collector. These collector are mobile information directory. Most of the collector are great Traditional Healers and lovers of forests. They pass long time inside the forest in search of herbs. As breakfast, lunch and dinner they prefer many wild fruits. These fruits are useful not only as food but also as tonic. You will find details about these fruits in my future articles.

Seeing the demand of Aloe in national and international market now the farmers specially the young enterpreuners have started commercial cultivation of Aloe vera. They have found this crop as hardy, fast growing and drought tolerant crop. I know at least 30 farmers engaged in Aloe farming. As the planting material is not available in nearby forests, the farmers are facing many problems. Due to ignorance they are getting wild varieties in name of improved varieties at very high rates.

This high cost of planting material has made this crop ‘A crop of rich farmers’. Most of the farmers are cultivating Aloe just for selling it as planting material to other farmers after multiplication. There are no processing units in Chhattisgarh. The farmers are aware that after two to three years the level of saturation for planting material will come and after that the rates will go down. Many buyers at national and international level are eager to establish processing unit in Chhattisgarh growers are engaged in chemical farming Heavy use of chemical inputs are increasing the production (i.e. required at this stage because of its demand as planting material) but deteriorating its medicinal quality. I feel that there is a strong need to aware the farmers about the harms of chemical farming and advantages of organic farming. With the help of organic growers, SOPAM has prepared a detailed package of practices and with the help of field level demonstrations, farmers are motivated to adopt organic farming practices As the natural population of Aloe is decreasing at alarming rate in the state it is essential to take strong action for its conservation. The only purpose behind writing this article is to show the world community the present scenario of traditional knowledge, present utilisation, cultivation natural occurrence and marketing of Dhikuar (Aloe vera) in Chhattisgarh, the Herbal State