The Man Who Made Plants Write: Essays by Jagadish Chandra Bose

by Jagadish Chandra Bose, Sumana Roy (Translator)

An internationally celebrated poet and critic translates Jagadish Chandra Bose’s revolutionary writings on plant sentience and communication

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) was a Bengali scientist and polymath who developed a theory of plant communication more than a century ago. Bose suggested that plants had their own vocabulary, an “unvoiced life” that he recorded as a “script” with a crescograph, a device that measured how plants respond to each other and their environments.

Inviting readers into the “resounding silence of the green plant kingdom,” he described an underlying unity beneath the multiplicity of phenomena, and a world in which “endless music is sung everywhere.” Dismissed as idiosyncratic and unscientific when he was alive, Bose provocatively challenged the hierarchy of living beings, which relegated plants to the bottom, and created a mesmerizing body of work on nonhuman intelligence.

Through her lyrical translations from Bose’s essay collection Abyakta (“The Unsaid”; 1922), Sumana Roy reveals the revolutionary character of his mind, as poetic and philosophical as it was scientific.

Genres: Nature, Essays

144 pages, Hardcover

Published March 17, 2026

About the author

Acharya Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, (Bengali: আচার্য স্যর জগদীশ চন্দ্র বসু )was a Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, as well as an early writer of science fiction.He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made very significant contributions to plant science, and laid the foundations of experimental science in the Indian subcontinent. IEEE named him one of the fathers of radio science.He is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction. He also invented the crescograph. A crater on the moon has been named in his honor.

Literary Works:
Abyakta (Bengali), 1922

Awards:
Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) (1903)
Companion of the Order of the Star of India (CSI) (1911)
Knight Bachelor (1917)

Reviews

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The past constitutes the present; not knowing the history of the past will keep the present and the future unknown to us. So what we thought was separate is actually not separate. Billions of worlds scattered in the void are woven into the fabric of the sky. The vibration of one world is carried to another world—The human mind cannot bear the weight of infinity. How can I conceive the idea of the boundless cosmos while being a mere speck of dust?’

‘The vibration we feel through the skin is called heat; the vibration that excites the sense of sight is called light. There are many vibrations in the sky that are utterly imperceptible to our senses. Blind people have imagined different forms of the same animal by touching different parts of an elephant’s body. We imagine energy similarly.’

‘Gradually, a bridge—was built between the past and the present—the gap between their times and ours bridged. Every so often, an incompleteness comes and kidnaps from the world its beauty and vitality. The interplay of light and darkness, happiness and sorrow, are tumultuous because of incongruity, though a painting is incomplete without the combination of light and darkness. The sea assumes a peaceful form only at his command, at whose command the endless ocean is enraged by the wind.’

‘Only now have I come to understand that behind every barrier lies some intention. I have come to realise that the establishment of truth depends on adversity, for truth is weakened by the indulgence of favourable conditions. The lack of materials is not the primary deficiency for those who rightfully want the truth. For the pure white lotus of Goddess Saraswati is not a golden lotus; it is a lotus of the heart. In an article about twenty years ago I wrote, 'Tree life is like the shadow of human life.' I wrote it without knowing anything. I will confess that it was just youthful bravado and an excitement with words. Today, that lost memory has come back in words, and dreams and waking have merged together.’

‘Often there is no need for words. If one observes from love, many qualities are revealed, one is able to hear many things. These trees that do not speak—that they have a life, that they eat like us, that they grow with time, I did not know any of this. I understand it now—When fallen into bad times, some of them have to steal and rob as well. All the qualities that the human has, some of them are to be found in them as well. Plants help each other as well, they form friendships. Sacrifice, the human’s greatest virtue—that, too, can be seen among plants. Plant life is only a shadow of human life. I will share this with you gradually.’

‘All along, it has had another strength. The memory of having originated from the seed of the banyan tree is imprinted on every part of it. Because of this, its roots are firmly established in its mainland, its head reaches upward in search of light, and its limbs spread out to provide shade. With what strength does it survive despite its injuries? Through patience and steadfastness it tightly embraces its place, balances the inner and outer harmonies through perception, and retains the accumulated strength of many lifetimes through memory. And what about the unfortunate one that detaches itself from its birthplace and homeland, nurtured by foreign sustenance, and forgets its national memory? What strength must such an unfortunate being possess in order to survive?’

‘The movement of loving beings is not solely determined by external impact. From inside various emotions appear and complicate external motion. How much of these internal emotions come from habit and how much from spontaneity? Can one determine the motion of a person driven by such diverse internal and external forces? But no one can resist the force of gravity. It is that invisible force that makes me return to my birthplace after so many years.’

‘The attraction towards one’s birthplace is natural because of one having come to be born here. But the logic behind my taking the position of the chair of this assembly today is not immediately evident. Questions may arise: is there a place for a science worker in the field of literature? Literature has not been confined within a tiny chamber or framework here; instead it seems that we have resolved to appreciate it more. Today literature is not just a beautiful ornament for us—today we are eager to see all the pursuits of our mind, all its sadhana, its aspiration, in literature.’

‘In the yajna of this literature conference, I have also seen scientists. Among those honored with the position of the chair is our Desamanya Acharya Srijukta Prafulla Chandra, whom I consider a friend and colleague and, with pride and affection, refer to as a compatriot—There is an extreme reliance on specialisation in the realm of knowledge in the Western world. Every branch of knowledge is organized to keep itself independent; as a result, the attempt to understand one’s self has almost disappeared.’

‘Seeds come in many forms and shapes—some are small, some big. It is not possible to guess the height of a tree from looking at its seed. A gigantic banyan tree is born from a very small seed. Who can imagine that such a large tree is hidden inside this tiny seed? You might have seen farmers scattering rice seeds in agricultural fields. But the plants and trees in the forests were not born from humans scattering seeds there—seeds are being dispersed day and night, through countries and continents.’

‘Whether every seed will turn into a tree or not no one can say. The seed might fall on a hard rock—it won’t be able to sprout into a sapling then. The seed needs heat, water, and soil to sprout. No matter where the seed might fall, the infant plant remains asleep inside it for many days. Until it gets an optimum place where it can grow, the hard cover of the seed will protect the infant plant from danger and difficulties. Seeds ripen at different times. Mango and lichi seeds ripen in Baisakh (April–May); paddy and millets in Ashwin–Kartik (September–November).’