Globalizing Local Space and Knowledge: A Study on Hortus Malabaricus
Keywords:
Hortus Malabaricus, Van Rheede, local space, globalizationAbstract
Hortus Malabaricus is a 17th-century medico-botanical treatise on the medicinal properties of flora of the Malabar coast, which was compiled by Hendrik van Rheede, the Governor of Dutch Malabar from 1669 to 1676. Van Rheede was also assisted by native informants in this venture, who disclosed the Ayurvedic traditional knowledge about the plants of Malabar. The speciality of this narrative text was that it was seen as first of its kind, when it came to the representation of a local or indigenous knowledge in a global framework. The present paper is an attempt to study the numerous ways in which this representation is evident in the text.
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