New research into centuries-old Marathi poetry is overturning a powerful myth about India’s landscapes, revealing that the country’s open grasslands are not degraded forests but ancient ecosystems in their own right. By reading 750-year-old verses alongside ecological data, scientists argue that India’s savannas have deep cultural roots and ecological histories that long predate colonial forestry and modern climate policy.
What emerges is a portrait of a subcontinent where grass, fire and grazing shaped livelihoods and imaginations for generations, even as official narratives later dismissed these places as “wastelands” in need of trees. I see this shift as more than a scientific correction; it is a challenge to how conservation is planned, how climate targets are pursued and whose knowledge counts when we decide what a healthy landscape should look like.
Ancient poems, modern science
The starting point for this reappraisal is a body of devotional and narrative poetry written in Marathi, one of the major languages of western and central India, that dates back roughly three quarters of a millennium. Researchers treated these verses not as quaint folklore but as detailed eyewitness accounts of everyday life, reading their descriptions of grazing, fire, wildlife and seasonal change as ecological data points embedded in culture. By tracing how poets described open, grassy country over time, they could reconstruct how people understood and used these landscapes long before formal scientific surveys existed.
In the earliest text written in Marathi, a work that has been central to this project, the authors describe a countryside structured around open grazing lands, seasonal water sources and the movement of herds rather than dense, closed-canopy forests. Those passages, preserved in oral and written traditions and now examined systematically, show that communities in what is now India recognized and relied on savanna-like ecosystems centuries ago, treating them as productive commons rather than empty spaces. That insight is at the heart of new ecological work that uses folklore to shed light on ancient Indian savannas, as detailed in a recent study highlighted through folklore research.
What the 750-year poems actually reveal
When I look closely at what the 750-year-old poems describe, a consistent picture emerges of open, grassy terrain dotted with trees, shaped by fire and grazing, and home to a distinct suite of animals and livelihoods. The verses speak of cattle and sheep moving across wide pastures, of hunters and pastoralists navigating scrub and grass rather than dense jungle, and of seasonal burning that refreshed the land instead of destroying it. These are the hallmarks of tropical savannas, not of forests that have been recently cleared or degraded.
Scientists working with these texts have catalogued repeated references to grassland species, grazing practices and fire regimes that match what ecologists today recognize as savanna dynamics. Their analysis shows that these open ecosystems cover nearly 10% of India and more than one third of the land surface of Earth, a scale that underscores how central they are to both regional and global ecology. The same research team also identified eight distinct references in the poems that indicate some of these savanna areas are even more ancient than previously assumed, a finding summarized in a detailed account of how 750-year-old poems can illuminate landscape history.
Folklore meets ecological evidence
What makes this work compelling is how it brings literary analysis into direct conversation with ecological methods that have been developing for decades. Earlier scientific evidence, including fossil pollen and remains of grass-eating animals, had already suggested that tropical savannas and grasslands in India are ancient, not just the byproduct of recent deforestation. By layering the poems on top of this physical record, researchers can cross-check cultural memory against material traces, strengthening the case that these open ecosystems have persisted for millennia rather than centuries.
In practice, that means treating verses about grazing and fire as data that can be compared with pollen cores, charcoal deposits and faunal remains from the same regions. When the imagery in the poems aligns with what the fossil record shows about grasses, shrubs and grazing animals, it becomes harder to argue that these landscapes are simply degraded forests that emerged after large-scale tree cutting. One summary of the work notes that the study, published in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature, explicitly argues that tropical savannas and grasslands in India are ancient ecosystems whose cultural and ecological roles have changed over time, a conclusion grounded in both physical evidence and ancient folklore.
Re-reading India’s earliest Marathi text
The earliest Marathi text at the center of this research is not just a religious or literary artifact; it is also a landscape document. Its verses linger on the textures of everyday rural life, from the feel of dry-season dust underfoot to the sight of scattered trees breaking up a horizon of grass. When I read those descriptions through an ecological lens, they evoke a mosaic of savanna and scrub, where tree cover is patchy and sunlight reaches the ground, rather than the continuous shade of a dense forest.
Scholars have highlighted how this text, written in Marathi and rooted in western and central India, repeatedly associates virtue, livelihood and community with open grazing lands and shared pastures. That emphasis suggests that, for the communities who produced and preserved the work, savanna-like environments were not marginal but central to social and spiritual life. The research team, which includes ecologist Prasad D. N. Nerlekar of Michigan State University, has used this insight to argue that conservation policy should recognize the historical depth and cultural value of these landscapes, a point underscored in a focused profile of how Marathi texts and ecology intersect.
From Adi Parva to pastoral memory
The poems are not the only ancient texts that help reconstruct India’s open landscapes. Classical literature such as the Adi Parva, a foundational section of the Mahabharata, also contains rich descriptions of forests, plains and grazing grounds that can be read ecologically. When I consider these narratives alongside the Marathi verses, a broader pattern appears: Indian literary traditions have long distinguished between dense forests and more open, grassy country, assigning different social and spiritual meanings to each.
In the Adi Parva, journeys through wild country often move between wooded areas and more open spaces where cattle can graze and armies can camp, reflecting a nuanced understanding of landscape types that aligns with modern ecological categories. This textual tradition, accessible through references to the Adi Parva, reinforces the idea that open grasslands were recognized and valued in ancient India, not simply seen as failed forests. When combined with the Marathi poems, it suggests a deep, cross-regional memory of savanna-like environments that predates modern land use and colonial forestry.
Savannas shaped western India
One of the most striking implications of the new research is how strongly it links savannas to the historical development of western India. The study argues that these open ecosystems shaped settlement patterns, pastoral economies and cultural practices across the region, providing grazing for livestock, habitat for wildlife and space for seasonal burning that maintained the grass–tree balance. That history sits uneasily with the way these areas have often been treated in recent decades, when they have been dismissed as wastelands and targeted for tree-planting campaigns that assume more canopy is always better.
Accounts from the sixteenth century, cited alongside the poems, describe landscapes in western India that were already strongly associated with savanna ecosystems long before British-era deforestation and modern agricultural expansion. These narratives speak of open grazing grounds, scrub and scattered trees as established features of the countryside, not as newly cleared land. One detailed report notes that these areas have long been dismissed as wastelands and targeted for tree-planting campaigns, even though a sixteenth-century account in western India describes a landscape strongly associated with savanna ecosystems long before British-era deforestation, a contradiction highlighted in coverage of how SAVANNAS SHAPED WESTERN INDIA.
Rethinking conservation, climate efforts
If India’s savannas are ancient, not accidental, then conservation and climate strategies that treat them as empty spaces to be filled with trees risk doing ecological harm in the name of restoration. I see this as one of the most consequential lessons of the new research: climate efforts that focus narrowly on tree planting can erase open ecosystems that store carbon differently, support unique biodiversity and sustain pastoral livelihoods. Protecting these landscapes means recognizing that not every hectare should be turned into closed-canopy forest, even in the name of climate mitigation.
The study’s authors argue that earlier scientific evidence, including fossil pollen and remains of grass-eating animals, already pointed to the antiquity of these ecosystems, and that the poems add a cultural dimension that should reshape policy. Their work has been framed as part of a broader agenda of RETHINKING CONSERVATION, CLIMATE EFFORTS, urging policymakers to balance carbon goals with the need to preserve grasslands and savannas that have both ecological and cultural significance. One report emphasizes that earlier scientific evidence, including fossil pollen and remains of grass-eating animals, supports this view and that the new textual analysis strengthens the case for rethinking conservation, climate efforts and the recognition of these landscapes’ cultural significance alongside their ecological importance, a perspective captured in coverage labeled RETHINKING CONSERVATION CLIMATE EFFORTS.
Global stakes for open ecosystems
Although the focus of the new research is India, the implications reach far beyond national borders, because open ecosystems are a major component of the planet’s surface. Savannas and grasslands cover more than one third of the land surface of Earth, and they play a crucial role in global carbon cycles, hydrology and biodiversity. When I connect that global picture to the Indian case, it becomes clear that misclassifying these landscapes as degraded forests is not just a local policy error; it is a distortion that can ripple through international climate accounting and conservation planning.
The Indian findings also resonate with debates in Africa, South America and Australia, where ecologists have long argued that savannas are ancient, fire-adapted systems that cannot simply be “fixed” by planting trees. The new work from India adds a powerful cultural and historical dimension to that argument, showing how literature and folklore can document the long-term presence of open ecosystems in ways that complement physical data. One detailed summary notes that these open ecosystems cover nearly 10% of India and more than one third of the land surface of Earth, and that the researchers also found eight references suggesting some savanna areas are even more ancient, a global context laid out in a focused analysis of ancient savanna evidence.
Why ancient knowledge matters now
For me, one of the most striking aspects of this research is how it elevates the authority of local and historical knowledge in debates that are often dominated by satellite images and carbon models. The Marathi poems, the Adi Parva and other ancient texts show that communities in India have been observing, naming and managing savanna landscapes for centuries, long before modern ecology existed as a discipline. Recognizing that continuity can help bridge the gap between scientific expertise and the lived experience of pastoralists, farmers and forest dwellers who still depend on these open ecosystems.
At a time when climate policy is under pressure to deliver quick, measurable results, it is tempting to default to simple metrics like tree counts and canopy cover. The story emerging from India’s 750-year-old poems is a reminder that such metrics can be misleading if they ignore the diversity of ecosystems and the histories that shaped them. By taking ancient knowledge seriously, and by reading poetry and folklore as part of the ecological record, researchers are offering a richer, more nuanced map of India’s landscapes, one that could guide more just and effective conservation in the decades ahead, as highlighted in the broader discussion of how folklore sheds light on environmental change.
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