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Medicinal plants in India have been collected from the wild and cultivated for millennia. The Rig veda, written in India between 4800 and 1600 BC is the earliest record (in India) of the use of tree, shrub, herb, and grass combinations for curing ailments. Since then, thousands of books and papers have been written extolling the therapeutic value of Indian medicinal plants. In the Indian commercial market, it is generally accepted that nearly 95 percent of the medicinal plants in use are obtained from the wild. For the rural poor that figure is probably 100 percent.

The Indian Subcontinent contains about 25,000 species of vascular plants, of which at least half are endemic to the region. The 7000 medicinal plants used by the various traditional medical systems account for 28 percent of the region's flora--a very high percentage.