Religious beliefs and traditional customs in India have inspired respect for nature. There is almost no contradiction between religious beliefs and environmental protection. In this aspect, one related belief or tradition of nature worship entails the safeguarding of forest sections dedicated to deities or ancestral spirits. These dedicated patches are designated as “Sacred Groves”. Several tribes rely entirely on these forests for their survival, and their traditional practises have helped to maintain a significant number of wild plant species for a variety of reasons, including food, fibre, medicine, and shelter. Totems, holy groves, and other notions emerged as a result of religious belief systems protecting and conserving plant and animal diversity in the landscape. Sacred groves serves as major stores of plant and fauna diversity that are sustainably protected by local communities. Because of development activities and changes in people's attitudes toward religious beliefs and practises, unmindful and careless acts toward forests are occurring at an alarming rate, resulting in biodiversity loss and forest degradation.
This paper gives an overview of sacred groves' cultural and ecological components. The paper can be broken down into three sections:
*Vrukshayurveda – Vruksh (trees) + Ayurveda (traditional Hindu system of medicine).
