The Venerated Trees of India

From 2003 Louise began researching Sacred Trees and Sacred Tree Groves in India. She conducted Field Research across 17 states of India over a ten year period, travelling through the states of Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand in the north, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Maharashtra in the centre, and through Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu in the south - taking photographs, recording oral histories, and interviewing anthropologists and botanists who specialised in the field. Louise has published a number of articles as a result of this research and has published the book, Sacred Trees of India: Adornment and Adoration as an Alternative to the Commodification of Nature. For more information about the book, including a 30 page extract visit https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-8833-2. She has discovered that this practice is an important environmental phenomena, as when a tree has been aesthetically enhanced it is protected. She has taken hundreds of photographs, so this Gallery only represents a taste.