Just as the planting of trees was recommended and celebrated, cutting them was condemned by almost all the dharma shastras. Kautilya’s Arthashastra (c. fourth century B.C.E.) prescribes varying levels of fines for those who destroy trees, groves, and forests. Kautilya says:

    Despite these exhortations, the twentieth century has seen a massive destruction of trees. In the deforestation that has occurred in the Himalayas and in the Narmada basin, there has been a tragic transgression of dharma. Temples are now in the forefront of reforestation movements, urging devotees to plant saplings.

    We have looked at some of the narrative, ritual, philosophical, and ethical resources in the Hindu traditions that could help us fashion a respectful and reciprocal relationship with the natural world. We know that the environmental problems facing India are tremendous, but there is also no doubt that religion is a potential resource for raising people’s consciousness about these problems. Of course, Hindus, like people of other faiths, have been delightfully selective in the ways in which they have used scripture, practices, and modern technology. Pointing out the scriptural resources does not mean they will be incorporated into an effective worldview. In what follows, I will therefore examine more closely how specific Hindu groups have successfully used particular Hindu beliefs and texts to encourage ecofriendly actions.

    The plants sold as prasada are inexpensive; they cost about the equivalent of five cents each. The saplings cultivated are suitable for the soil in various parts of India, and by planting them at home one can have a piece of the sacred place of Tirumala wherever one lives. At the same time, officials at the temple have since 1981 run a “bioaesthetic” program under the name of Sri Venkateswara Vanabhivriddhi. In this program, a devotee donates money for the purchase and planting of trees and plants. The donor is honored by being granted special darshan (viewing of the deity in the inner shrine), accommodations on Tirumala (normally very hard to get), and public acknowledgment of the gift (strategically placed boards list the names of donors and the amount of their donations). This initiative has apparently been successful: over 2,500,000 indigenous trees are said to have been planted on India’s hills and plains.²²

Sacred Trees in Temples

Almost every temple in South India dedicated to the gods Shiva or Vishnu, or to a manifestation of the goddess, has a sthala vriksha, a special tree regarded as sacred to that area. This “official” tree is usually a grand old specimen, surrounded by a path used for circumambulation by pilgrims and devotees. The sthala vriksha symbolizes all trees and reminds pilgrims that all trees are worthy of respect.

    The Trees of Badrinath. Badrinath, a major pilgrimage center in the Himalayas, was a victim of overuse. A handful of pilgrims would go to the temple, high in the forested mountains. Located at 3,130 meters, it used to be surrounded by heavy forests. Now, with new roads, over 400,000 pilgrims visit the temple every year. Through the joint efforts of the director of the G. B. Pant Institute of India’s Himalayan Environment and Development, the chief priest of the temple, and the residents of the town, thousands of trees were planted in 1993. The Institute supplied the plants; the priest blessed them and urged the pilgrims to plant the trees as a sign of religious devotion. The priest told the story of how the Goddess Ganga (the river) would not come to Earth until Lord Shiva promised to break her fall. Shiva’s matted hair contained her and she did not flood the plains. The priest likened the forests to the matted hair of Shiva. The trees are now cut; in summer the Ganga floods the land and landslides destroy the local villages. The priest urged the pilgrims: “Plant these seedlings for Lord Shiva; you will restore his hair and protect the land.” The religious leader who supervised the planting efforts said that “We all have a duty to plant trees: they give shade and inspire meditation.” And the village headman remarked, “These are sacred trees that we will do our best to protect.”

    Many of the plants died during the winter that followed. In response, the G. B. Pant Institute established a nursery at Hanumanchatti to acclimatize seedlings. It also designed special metal covers to prevent snow from breaking the soft tips of the plants. Scientists determined the most promising native trees for planting and preserving biodiversity—Himalayan birch, oak, maple, spruce, and juniper, as well as other species. As a consequence, survival rates improved dramatically, and some plants have reached a height of two meters.²³

    The Paradise of Vrindavana. Vrindavan, the pastoral home of Lord Krishna in the Puranas, is the site of major environmental initiatives. ²⁴ The International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is working with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Ecocorps, and Environ, a U.K.-based agency, to plant trees, clean the holy Yamuna River, and stop the dumping of toxic waste in the area. The World Vaisnava Association is actively involved in this project. The “patron saint,” as it were, is Balarama, the elder brother of Krishna. Many of the unemployed young people now work with BAL (Balaram Eco Sena, or the Ecological Army of Balaram). Organizers have urged the local population to join the movement, telling them that Lord Balaram “is calling every one of us for Dham Seva (service to the holy land).” ²⁵ As we see in the story of Vrindavana, it is not just trees and groves but also the mighty rivers of India that are considered to be sacred.

Rivers: Physically Polluted Moral Purifiers
By bathing in the great rivers of India, one is said to be morally cleansed of sins and to acquire merit or auspiciousness. A story popular in oral tradition makes the point: A king goes to sleep on the banks of the River Ganga. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he sees some women covered in filth taking a dip in the holy river. They emerge from the river cleansed and then disappear. The king returns on several nights and sees the same thing. Eventually he asks them who they are; they reply that they are the embodiments of the rivers of India. Every day, they tell him, human beings bathe in the rivers and their sins are absolved by that act. The rivers—embodied as women—absorb the moral dirt and then come to the Ganga, the grand purifier, to purify themselves. Variations on the story describe where the Ganga goes to get herself purified, although it is generally assumed that she needs no purification.²⁶

    The generic version of the story distinguishes between two kinds of dirt. Moral dirt or sin, known as papa in Sanskrit, is perceptible as physical dirt in the bodies of the river. The story, therefore, makes a direct connection between morality and physical pollution. In addition to moral purity and physical purity, one may also note that in other Hindu contexts there is a third kind of purity: ritual purity. ²⁷ Bathing in rivers and other bodies of water ritually purifies the pilgrim and his or her clothes. Ritual purity encompasses physical purity, but all that is physically clean is not ritually pure. ²⁸ Even if a person is physically and ritually clean, the mere association with people and garb deemed ritually unclean or impure may be contagious enough to “pollute” him or her.

    Given the pollution of India’s rivers, the traditional story about the River Ganga and the need of other rivers to purify themselves in its waters is particularly poignant. Rapid industrialization has produced dangerous levels of toxic waste in many of India’s rivers. The sacred rivers are often being used as latrines, despite the injunctions in the dharma texts against such a practice. The rivers that are to supposed to purify stand stagnant, reflecting the rancid countenance of adharma, unrighteous behavior.
     Veer Bhadra Mishra, a priest and engineer, works to keep his “Mother Ganga” free from more pollution. A mahant (spiritual and administrative head) of the second-largest temple in Varanasi, he educates people on why and how the holy River Ganges should be kept free of bacterial pollution. He notes that corpses, not quite burnt from the funeral pyre, are dropped into the Ganga. “These people,” says Mishra bitterly, “are trying to kill my Mother.” ²⁹ Mishra avers that there is a saying that Ganges grants us salvation; he added: “this culture will end if the people stop going to the river, and if the culture dies, the tradition dies, and the faith dies.” It has been observed that “Mishra’s blend of culture tradition and faith with science and technology could be what ultimately saves the Ganges.”³⁰

    Devotion and law have also come together in the saving of the Yamuna River. The Yamuna River is one of the most sacred in India, beloved for its close association with the life of Krishna. When Krishna was born, his father carried him across the river to a place of safety; growing up on the banks of this river, Krishna played with the cowherd girls and stole their clothes while they were bathing in the river. It was on the banks of the Yamuna that he played his magic flute and danced through the moonlit nights. And yet this is today one of the most polluted rivers in India, with tons of industrial dyes, sewage, and other pollutants being dumped into the sacred waters. Gopishwar Nath Chaturvedi, a traditional ritual leader for pilgrims and a resident of Mathura (the birthplace of Lord Krishna), has taken the lead in trying to save the river. Leading a group of pilgrims to the river for a ritual bath in 1985, he saw the water colored red and green from industrial dyes that had been dumped from the nearby mills. Dead fish covered the ground, and birds were picking at their flesh. This scene struck him as a desecration of his mother, the river Yamuna. Since then, Chaturvedi has been working to “save his mother” by filing several “Public Interest Litigation” (PIL) briefs in the Allahabad High Court. The legal counsel in these cases was M. C. Mehta, an attorney who has been at the forefront of cases dealing with the environment. After the court found in Sri Chaturvedi’s favor, an Additional District Magistrate was appointed in Mathura to implement the court decision. ³¹

    One may also reflect briefly on the gender of the rivers. Though there are some exceptions, most of the rivers of India are considered to be female, while mountains are generally male. Rivers are perceived to be nurturing (and sometimes judgmental) mothers, feeding, nourishing, quenching, and when angered flooding the earth. Rivers are also personified as deities; Ganga is sometimes portrayed as a consort of Lord Shiva. In the plains of Tamilnadu, Kaveri Amman (Mother Kaveri) is seen as a devotee and sometimes the consort of Lord Vishnu, and several temples (like Terazhundur, near Kumbakonam) have a striking image of this personified river in the innermost shrine. In the pre-eighth-century Vishnu temple at Tirucherai, a small village near Kumbakonam, the River Kaveri is seen as in a maternal posture with a child on her lap. When the Kaveri is swollen after the early monsoon rains, I have heard the residents of Srirangam (a large temple town on an island in the middle of the river) say she was pregnant. This is a wonderful celebration of her life-giving potential: the surging river, rich with the monsoon waters, sweeps into the plains, watering the newly planted crops in the Thanjavur delta, and giving birth to the food that will nourish the population. On the feast of patinettam perukku, the eighteenth day in the Tamil month of Adi (July 15–August 14), all those who live on the banks of Kaveri in the Tamilnadu celebrate the river’s “pregnancy food cravings.” They take a picnic to the banks of the river and eat there; Kaveri Amman is the guest at every picnic. Just as the food cravings of pregnant women are indulged by the family, Kaveri Amman’s extended family celebrates her life-giving potential by picnicking with her. In some families, the oldest woman of the family “[leads] the festival and [throws] a handful of colored rices to satisfy the macakkai [food cravings during pregnancy] of the swiftly flowing Kaveri . . . as she hastened to the Lord’s house.” ³² According to oral tradition and local sthala puranams (pamphlets that glorify a sacred place), bathing in the river Kaveri during a specific month of the year (generally held to be the Tamil month of Aippasi, October 15–November 14) washes away one’s sins and gives a human being supreme liberation. Thus, according to some Hindu traditions, only Lord Vishnu or Mother Kaveri can give one both nourishment and salvation.

Women and Ecology

The despoliation of rivers in recent years is sometimes compared to the denigration of women at various times in many civilizations. In India, the situation is complicated; there have been powerful women whose names are known as poets, patrons, performers, and philosophers; on the other hand, there have also been some androcentric texts and practices in which the lot of women has not been good. Although one cannot make a general statement that women have been dominated by men in the history of the Hindu tradition and that this corresponds to man’s domination of nature (as is seen in many ecofeminist studies), it is hard not to draw a comparison between the rivers and the plight of women who are the target of crimes of greed and power.

     At the same time, a number of Indian women have become active around ecological issues. In many parts of India, women are involved in the Chipko movement, which promotes the protection of trees.³³ Women are also involved in communicating the tragedy of ecological disasters, sometimes using such art forms as Bharata Natyam, a traditional Indian dance. The theory and practice of classical dance in India (natya shastra) is seen as a religious activity. In other words, dance—indeed, most performing arts—is a path to salvation within some Hindu traditions. Mallika Sarabhai, a noted dancer and feminist communicator, presents the story of the Chipko (or “tree-hugging”) movement in her dances entitled Shakti: The Power of Women.

    Sujatha Vijayaraghavan’s compositions on ecological themes are choreographed by Rhadha, a well-known dance teacher in Channai, and regularly performed by Suchitra Nitin and Sunanda Narayanan. One of Vijayaraghavan’s pieces is particularly striking in this context. The song refers to a myth in which the God Shiva drank poison to save the universe. When the gods and the demons were churning the ocean of milk, using the serpent Vasuki as a rope, the snake spit out poisonous fumes, which overwhelmed the participants. Shiva saved them by consuming the poison and his neck turned blue. He is known as Nilakantha—the blue-throated one. The following song is set in the pattern of Karnatic music in the raga Begada:

    Notice that the references here are not to philosophical texts, but to a story from the Puranas that many Hindus would know. The tone of the song is teasing—a mood adopted in many classical Bharata Natyam songs, in which the young girl flirts with a god, frequently in a romantic situation. Here, Shiva is told that the sipping of a little poison at the time that the cosmic ocean of milk was churned is not enough; he is to suck out the poison from the whole world. The traditional context is preserved, but the message has been modified to draw attention to the poison that we have spread through our earth, water, and air. The mythic context enables the writer to use the strong word “poison,” rather than a more muted word like “pollution.”

     The audience for these ecologically aware dance recitals is diverse. It includes the very government workers, industrialists, and management executives who are responsible, either directly or indirectly, for regulating pollution. Mallika Sarabhai dances in urban and rural areas where she is able to get the attention of multiple audiences. A particular strength of dance as a medium is its subtlety: without being strident, the songs and expressions convey a message that lingers long after the performance is over. To a large extent, I would argue, the performance does the work that theological texts once did: that of reshaping and transforming attitudes and perspectives in the Hindu context.

Sathya Sai Baba and Clean Water Supply

Sathya Sai Baba is one of the most influential gurus in modern India. After he became aware that some parts of Rayalseema in Andhra Pradesh, India, had suffered drought conditions for years, the guru announced in 1994 that a “Water Supply Project” would be undertaken by his Sathya Sai Central Trust. He drew the attention of the people and the prime minister to the forty-five-year-old water problem. Sai Baba clearly draws connections between the rivers, religion, and morality. He is quoted as saying: “Rivers are the gift of God. In rivers like the Krishna, the Godavari, a lot of water is allowed to flow into the sea. . . . If there is constraint of finance, I am prepared to meet the cost even if it is 100 or 200 crores [one crore is ten million] for fulfilling this dire need of the Rayalaseema people. The devotees are prepared to make any sacrifice but I have not stretched my hands to anyone.”³⁵

    In attributing the lack of water to the decline of morality, Sai Baba also stated: “Water is getting scarcer every day. What is the reason? Because of the decline of morality among men, water is getting scarce in the world. For human life morality is the life breath. Morality makes humanness blossom. Because morals have been lost, water is getting scarce.”³⁶

    The Water Project covers 20,000 square kilometers and includes 750 villages without water. Mobilizing his devotees and financial resources, Sai Baba has allegedly been able to increase the region’s supply of safe drinking water. His devotees regard the project as a gesture of Sai Baba’s “love and compassion”—as well as an implicit indictment of the government. Although the ecological impact of Sai Baba’s activities can be debated, the power of the teacher is undisputable. Gurus like Sai Baba may ultimately have in their hands the power to change the behavior of devotees.

Limitations and Constraints

Some environmental philosophers have argued that Western religious traditions encourage dominion and control over nature, and thus bear a special burden of responsibility for the tragic state of our natural environment today. Such environmental philosophers sometimes turn to Eastern traditions to seek spiritual resources to help Westerners abjure and embrace eco-friendly policies. But if Eastern traditions, including Hinduism, are so eco-friendly, why do the countries in which these religions have been practiced have such a lamentable record of ecological disasters and rampant industrialization?

    The answers are, obviously, complex. Rich as the devotional and   dharmic resources have proven in India, Hinduism can be a source of complacency as well. Some Hindu values may impede ecological activism. Moreover, for Hindus, some texts are more effective than others in inspiring action. Articles on environmental philosophy furthermore often assume that there is a direct link between Hindu worldviews and practice. But in fact, there are competing forces that determine behavior within the Hindu tradition. Recent academic scholarship tends to blame Western thought and actions for the devastation of land in Third World countries. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames have suggested that Western intellectual colonization is responsible for the failures we see in eastern and southern Asia. ³⁷This view is also held by some Indian authors, like Vandana Shiva, an important figure in India’s environmental movement. In evaluating her position, however, Lance Nelson notes that she “focuses almost entirely on the West, and the Third World’s experience of colonialism, modernization, modernist develop-mentalism, and so on, as the root of her country’s environmental devastation. She thus tends to ignore the pre-colonial aspects of the problem. . . . She also tends to give idealized readings of the environmental implications of certain aspects of Hindu thought.”³⁸

    The responsibility and blame, I believe, has to be spread around. There are passages and texts within the Hindu religious traditions that encourage the acquisition of wealth in certain contexts. One must keep in mind that in the Hindu hierarchy, Bhu-Devi/Prithvi (the Earth Goddess) is of less importance than Sri/Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and good fortune. Lakshmi has traditionally had a far greater hold on people’s faith and aspirations than the Earth Goddess, and the quest for wealth seems to be more intense than reverence for the earth. In a world where good fortune seems to depend on consumer spending and industrial growth, the Earth Goddess faces some very stiff competition.

     There are other strands in Hindu religious traditions that have helped contribute to the current ecological crisis. One is the Hindu conviction that rivers like Ganga are so inherently pure that nothing can pollute them. ³⁹ Others have quite correctly pointed to the notion of sacred space as contributing to pollution. If certain spots like Vrindavana are inherently sacred and ought to be kept clean, one may pollute the “profane earth which is not sacred, which is not attached to Puranic or devotional narratives.”⁴⁰

    And then there is the focus on “individuality” in some of the Hindu traditions. Anil Agarwal notes: “Hinduism’s primary focus lies on the self, one’s immediate family, and one’s caste niche, to the neglect of the larger society and community. . . . Whereas the private sphere is carefully scripted in Hindu tradition, public life in India borders on and often descends into chaos. . . . A Hindu may go down to the Ganges River to purify himself or herself. The next moment, the same person will flush the toilet and discharge effluent into the very same sacred river. . . .”⁴¹ While this is more true in some Hindu communities than others, the emphasis on the “self” has to be noted, at least in some traditions. 

TEXTS ON DHARMA AND TEXTS ON THEOLOGY: BIMORPHIC WORLDVIEWS

Classical Hindu texts in the beginning of the Common Era enumerate the goals—or matters of value—of a human being. These are dharma, artha (wealth, power), kama (sensual pleasure), and moksha (liberation from the circle of life and death). ⁴² While dharma, wealth, and sensual pleasure are usually seen as this-worldly, moksha is liberation from this world and the repeated rebirths of a soul. There are texts that deal with dharma, wealth, sensual pleasure, and liberation. The multiple Hindu traditions do differ from other world religions in having this variety of goals and the array of texts that accompany them. This means that Hinduism presents adherents with several competing conceptual systems, intersecting but distinct.

    The texts that deal with moksha, or liberation, are generally concerned with three issues: the nature of reality, including the supreme being and the human soul; the way to the supreme goal; and the nature of the supreme goal. Generally the nature of reality is called tattva (truth) and corresponds with the term “theology.” These texts do not focus much on ethics or righteous behavior in this world; that is the province of dharma texts.

     The theological texts or sections that deal with tattva focus on weaning a human being from the earthly pursuit of happiness to what they consider to be the supreme goal of liberation (moksha) from this life. It is important to keep this taxonomy in mind, because theological doctrines that are oriented to liberation do not necessarily trickle down into dharmic or ethical injunctions; in many Hindu traditions, in fact, there is a disjunction between dharma and moksha.

     Indeed, J. A. B. van Buitenen says that there is a fundamental opposition between them: “ Mok6a , 'release,' is release from the entire realm which is governed by dharma....It stands, therefore, in opposition to dharma.... , Mok6a however, is the abandonment of the established order, not in favor of anarchy, but in favor of a self-realization which is precluded in the realm of dharma.” ⁴³ While Daniel Ingalls disagrees on the sharp nature of the cleavage described by van Buitenen, he does acknowledge that “[a]lways there were some men, and a few of them among India’s greatest religious leaders, who insisted on the contradiction between dharma and moksha.” ⁴⁴ Dharma texts promote righteous behavior on Earth, and moksha texts encourage one to be detached from such concerns. A few texts like the Bhagavadgita have tried to bridge dharma and moksha paradigms.