Cultural knowledge and importance of medicinal herbs

Abstract

For thousands of years, medicinal plants have been used as a safe therapeutic method in various cultures of the world. This paper explores how medicinal plant knowledge of the Rajpeian village varies with socio-economic and demographic factors. This study was conducted in Rajpeian community living in the remote area of Muzaffarabad the capital of AJ&K, to focus on the cultural knowledge and importance of medicinal herbs. A total of 146 household were assessed using different participatory appraisals through direct observation and semi-structured questionnaire. A total of 55 medicinal plants species were recorded with the help of native people. Theses remedies were used to treat different ailments, ranging from simple headache to highly complicated heart and stomach diseases. The person who have economic constraints, it use home remedies, go to shrines or visit spiritual healers. The villagers have different perspective about sickness. This study indicated that the traditional medicinal knowledge vanished due to some factors like mobility, education, alternative medicines, modern facilities, source of income and gender and age. Reason behind these finding are thought to be in the rapid socio-cultural changes due to globalization processes. Increased accessibility to health centers and improved transportation infrastructure result in a loss of cultural knowledge. The gradual decline of indigenous knowledge in the younger generation was due to modernization. There it is a need to promote awareness in local communities on sustainable use and manage the conservation of plant-flora.