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Discussion for: Terai • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope
Terai is a Growing Region: a named cultivation region that sits above Growing Areas and below the regional complex and gene pool. It covers the whole sub-Himalayan lowland belt, in Nepal and in the Indian states along it. The Dooars have their own page.
Data verification
Check the main page for the sources behind each statement. Discuss boundaries, elevation and rainfall figures, and the accessions that belong to the region here.

Discussion

Elevation, rainfall and map centre

The infobox elevation (63–330 m) and rainfall (1,138–2,680 mm, falling from east to west) are the figures Kandel and colleagues give for the Terai of Nepal. No equivalent figure was found for the Indian side, so the infobox values describe the Nepali part only. The map centre (27.20, 84.00) is a point inside the belt near the Nepal–India border, chosen to centre the map. It is not a locality.

What the sources cover

The sources for the belt are documentary: colonial administrative evidence (the Hemp Drugs Commission of 1893–94 and Hunter's Darjeeling volume of 1876), two Nepali government papers of 1934 and 1948–49 printed in the Regmi Research Series, Fisher's overview of 1975, a 2021 review and a few herbarium sheets. No study of the genetics of cannabis collected in the Terai was found. Shakya and colleagues (2021) do not name the Terai; the article quotes them for Nepal as a whole.

The Commission's special inquiry in north Bhagalpur and Purnea was made by B. C. Basu, who, the Commission wrote, "does not seem to have explored the waste lands of the Terai"; his inquiries related "solely to the populous parts of the country" (vol. I, ch. III, para. 27). That is why the Commission states its view of the growth towards the Terai as a probability.

A sentence in the Commission's evidence volume that reads "Spontaneous growth in the Darjeeling Terai" belongs to the evidence of the Mymensingh District Board (witness 249, p. 524), not to a Darjeeling witness, so it is not used for the Darjeeling Terai.

Stature and the herbarium sheets

No herbarium sheet whose label names the Terai gives a plant height. Two lowland sheets come closest. Shrestha 2834 (on the way to Koilabas, Dang District, 270 m, 2003) is catalogued as a shrub, with no height. Banerjee 263 (Motihari, East Champaran, 1964) has a blank notes line. Neither label uses the name Terai, so neither accession is placed in this region, and the Accessions table on the article is empty.

The sheets the article cites for short plants (Cooper 1486 in Bhutan, a Cowan sheet from the Darjeeling hills, Ikeda 1217005 in Darchula) all come from the hills, not the plain. The one height the sources give for the plain is the Purnea witness's "over six feet" for wild bhang.

Wild or cultivated in the Terai

The Nepal Darbar's reply to the Hemp Drugs Commission (1893) says hemp grew wild "all over the State, but it is more abundant in the Terai than in the hills". Fisher (1975) says that "in the Terai it does not grow wild, but it is extensively cultivated there". Both statements are kept on the article page and neither is preferred. Neither source explains the difference.

Hamilton's Tariyani

Hamilton (1819) writes that the dried leaves "are brought from the Tariyani" (p. 231). He defines the word himself in the chapter on the regions of Nepal: "This low region is called Tariyani, Tarai, or Ketoni" (p. 62). The p. 231 sentence gives no date for the observation.

Dates of the Regmi Research Series items

The 1934 order is dated Poush 21, 1990 (5 January 1934) in the text. The 1948–49 survey is cited by the volume year (Year 11, 1979), because the month of that issue was not recorded. Fisher spells the district Mahatari; the article uses Mahottari.

Vendor statements

The Real Seed Company's two statements about the Terai (cultivation since "at least the 18th Century"; large-scale cultivation introduced in the late 1930s) are reported as the vendor's. The listing gives no source for either.

The earliest dated Nepali record of ganja as a Terai revenue item found so far is the order of January 1934, which does not say when the practice began. The 1948–49 survey says that ganja cultivation "has become very popular these days" but not when it began or who took it up. The two older travellers' accounts do not describe Terai cultivation. Hamilton (1819, p. 231) says the plant was "not cultivated" in Nepal and that the dried leaves came from the Tariyani. Kirkpatrick (1811, pp. 142–143), writing of the mission of 1793, describes the plant that yields cherris in the valley of Nepal and says that ganja and bhang "are obtained in the southern parts of Hindostan". Neither gives a date for the start of ganja growing in the Terai, or names the growers.

Seizure reports

The two seizures cited in the article (Inaruwa, Sunsari, 19 September 2026; Pachrauta, Bara, 5 September 2026) are enforcement reports. They do not say where the seized plants were grown, so they are not evidence of cultivation in the Terai.