HYDERABAD: Across India, in villages, forests, temple towns and along old roads, stand trees that have lived through centuries of change. They have seen rivers alter course, settlements expand and contract and generations pass. Many of these trees remain unmarked and undocumented or forgotten, even as the land around them is reshaped. They are not only old; they hold ecological and historical memory that cannot be replaced once lost.
For Uday Krishna, founder of the Vata Foundation, the journey to find these trees did not begin as a formal conservation project. It started with a simple personal decision in February 2024; he gave this a name, “Big Tree Quest”. “I just wanted to see the oldest trees in different states myself,” he says. “You never know how long they’re going to be around.” What began as curiosity gradually turned into a sustained effort to locate, record and understand India’s oldest and most significant trees.
Over the past one year, Krishna has travelled across more than 20 states, around 35,000 km, documenting over 130 ancient trees.
The trees selected for documentation follow clear criteria. Some are scientifically dated through carbon analysis. Others are identified as the oldest or largest known specimens of their species in a region. Many are tied to history, culture or long-standing community use.
Among them are a Juniper tree in the Spiti Valley, which is India’s oldest Juniper and the country’s oldest known tree, 2,032 years old and growing at over 3,521 metres; India’s oldest known tamarind tree in Bijapur of Karnataka (over 885 years old), which has also been declared a heritage tree; world’s oldest Chinar in Srinagar (a 900-year-old chinar in Srinagar); and old banyan, teak, arjuna and baobab trees spread across different landscapes.
Each tree has its own context. Some served as meeting points during the freedom movement, offering shelter and anonymity. Others marked ancient trade routes or stood near places of learning and worship. In several cases, the surrounding environment has changed entirely — villages relocated, rivers shifted, buildings replaced — while the tree has remained in the same spot. “When everything else changes, the tree becomes the reference point,” Krishna says. “It’s often the only thing that connects the present to the past.”
Finding these trees is often the hardest part of the work. Many are mentioned only in old research papers, temple records or oral histories. Directions are imprecise and landmarks no longer exist. In some areas, access is limited by terrain or forest regulations. “A paper might say ‘32 kilometres from the nearest town’,” he says. “But on the ground, that could mean dozens of villages and hundreds of trees.” In several cases, it took repeated visits over multiple years to confirm a tree’s identity and significance.
There are also gaps in official awareness. Krishna notes that even forest departments are sometimes unaware that a historically important or unusually old tree stands within their jurisdiction. “Once people know, they usually want to help,” he says. “The problem is that many of these trees are invisible in records.”
Protection brings another set of challenges. While attention can help, it can also cause damage. Concrete platforms built close to roots, heavy footfall, and poorly planned beautification efforts can weaken old trees. For this reason, exact locations are often not publicised. “These trees survived because they were left alone for a long time,” Krishna says. “Sudden attention can be risky if it isn’t informed.”
When threats are immediate, responses tend to be practical and low-profile. In one instance, an old tree inside a tiger reserve was at risk due to a river that had begun to change course. With the monsoon approaching, there was a real chance the tree could be lost. Local forest officials were informed, and reinforcement work was carried out within existing resources. “There was no big project,” Krishna says. “Just timely action. That’s often what saves a tree.”
The work involves extensive travel, often alone. Long drives, walking through forest areas, dealing with weather and uncertain schedules are routine. Yet Krishna says the physical strain is outweighed by what the trees represent. “When you stand next to a tree that has lived for 700 or 800 years, your sense of time changes,” he says. “You realise how short our planning cycles are.”
Krishna believes India lacks a consistent system for recognising and caring for ancient trees. In several other countries, old trees are formally mapped, studied and maintained as part of cultural and environmental heritage. In India, protection depends largely on local interest or individual initiatives. “We have some of the oldest trees in the world,” he says. “But there is no uniform framework to look after them.”
He argues for a national approach that sets clear standards for identification, documentation and care across states. Such a system, he says, would move beyond symbolic declarations and focus on long-term management based on science and local conditions.
Beyond history, these trees play an important ecological role. They support a wide range of species, store genetic diversity, influence soil and water systems, and help moderate local climate. Planting saplings, Krishna notes, cannot replace what an old tree provides. “A plantation is not a substitute for a tree that has been growing for centuries,” he says.
The next step in the project is to compile the documentation into a public archive and, eventually, a book. The aim is to make information accessible to researchers, officials and the wider public. “If people don’t know a tree exists, it has very little chance of being protected,” Krishna says. “Awareness is the first step.”
For now, the work continues, guided by fragments of information, local memory and steady fieldwork. The trees remain silent, but they carry centuries within them. Whether they continue to stand, Krishna believes, will depend on how soon they are recognised, recorded and cared for.