According to Hindu historical texts, Ram Kand Mool was consumed by Lord Rama, his wife Sita, and his brother Lakshmana during their exile in the forest.[5][6]
In the 1980s, the Indian botanists unsuccessfully tried to find more information on Ram Kand Mool. Later in 1994, the Shivaji University, Kolhapur resorted to DNA fingerprinting to identify the Ram Kand Mool plant and concluded that it is a variety of Agave americana. The anatomical study showed the plant is a typical monocotyledonous vascular bundle arrangement. However, this added more confusion, as monocots have adventitious roots and not a tap root system.[5]
Hence, to find out the source, the plant material was obtained from a vendor from Jyotiba Temple in Kolhapur district, Maharashtra. The slices of approximately 4.5 inches radius and 2–3 mm breadth were brought to the laboratory and DNA was extracted from slices of Ram Kand Mool. Its purity was searched on agarose gel. The plastid locus for maturase k was selected to identify the plant species. The similarity search revealed 89 per cent identity with the partial sequence of the plastid locus maturase of Agave sisalana.[5][7]
