I have never met Professor K S Manilal. In fact, I heard about him only about 10 years ago and hardly imagined how his work would affect my life. Like most Malayalis I had been blissfully unaware of the 17th-century magnum opus ‘Hortus Malabaricus’ (Garden of Malabar) which the then Dutch Governor of Kochi, Henrik Van Rheede, had compiled in Latin about the medicinal plants of Kerala.
Comprising 12 volumes (each volume coming to about 500 pages) with wonderfully accurate drawings of the 742 plants that any botanist today would be proud of, these books were accessible to only those who knew Latin.
I cannot imagine the bravery and determination of Prof Manilal, a botanist working with the Calicut University, as he ventured forth to translate the 6,000 pages of Hortus Malabaricus to English and Malayalam in 1969.
Not only did he learn Latin and translate the 12 volumes but he and his team also travelled across Kerala and identified and collected specimens of every plant, which is now maintained in a herbarium in the Calicut University.
He ensured an exact word-by-word translation of the original volumes and maintained the layout and presentation of the original books in the new publications. He also added a new page for every plant, providing its correct botanical name and some additional information on current location and use.
The English version was published in 2003 and the Malayalam version in 2008. Since then, it has helped thousands of researchers and plant enthusiasts across the world understand the wonderfully diverse flora of Kerala and the traditional medicine practices which supplemented Ayurveda.
Prof Manilal gave us further insight to the flora of Kerala through his numerous research publications and his work on the flora of the Silent Valley enabled the Kerala government to protect it. And beyond botany, through his subsequent books such as the ‘Hortus Malabaricus and the Socio-cultural Heritage of India’ published in 2012, he enabled us to learn more about the political, social, and linguistic history of Kerala.
My work in genomics had opened my eyes to the enormous complexity and power of plants, and while trying to learn more about Kerala’s rich biodiversity, I came across the English version of ‘Hortus Malabaricus’ in 2015.
I was amazed at seeing the exceptional content, and while saluting Henrik Van Rheede for his grand vision in 1670 to compile this, I felt the same emotion for Prof Manilal who brought Van Rheede’s work to all of us after 325 years! That gave me enough motivation to bring this book to life by setting up a garden in Thrissur dedicated to the plants in Hortus Malabaricus.
This has been a 10-year effort so far, and as we plan to open the garden towards the end of this month, I bow my head in tribute to the man who made this possible.
(The author is strategic advisor to the Kerala Genome Data Centre and managing trustee of the SciGenom Research Foundation)