Introduction: - One of the major crises of modern age which remains unsolved is ecological destruction and the consequent tragic fate hanging over human destiny.[1] Scientists, technocrats, policy makers, social workers, development agencies, communicators and civil society groups are collectively striving for a lasting solution to this problem.[2] Though religious thought and practices lasted through several millennia we have generally ignored the message of ecological harmony found in the religious heritage of India. It has become necessary to look for ecological insights in Indian religions.[3]

Different theories from different religions

Hinduism and ecology

The Rig Veda which is the most ancient of the Scriptures says the simultaneous presence of divine, the human and the animals that they all need each other. The cohesiveness of integrated activities of gods, humans and animals ensure the welfare of all. Gods are with us and the animals are with us. This serves as an example of the general trend of prayers linking gods, people and nature showing the inevitable interdependence.[4]

The Rig Veda refers to many different theories of creation, the speculations on the origin of the cosmos brings in the insight of togetherness of gods, humans and nature. The creation hymn in Rig Veda states, “The unknown God, the golden Embryo” were born from one another. From him Viraj was born and from Viraj came the Man. Then gods offered sacrifice with man, and the fat was collected and made it into those beasts that live in the air, in the forest and in villages. From the verses and were born, from the verses and chants formulas were born. Horses were born from it, cows, goats, and sheep were born. His mouth became Brahmin, his arms were made into the warrior, his thighs the people, and from his feet the servants were born. It also says the moon born from his mind and the sun from his eyes, Indira and Agni from his mouth and wind from his breath.[5]

Space rose from the navel and the sky from his head, the earth coming from the feet. From the sacrifice of the primordial man everything has been created even some of the gods. The social structure of the society is treated as an integrated act of creation. The ecological insight emerging from the act of creation is that humans are integrated parts of creation. Purusa the primeval male is the sacrifice from which all creation burst out, implying a monistic world in which nature is equally important.[6]

Another creation hymn, Aditi and the Birth of the Gods regards creation as mysterious brings in the female principle of creation showing the image of the goddess giving birth to creation retrieving of the sun from the ocean brings us back to the cosmic level again. The retrieval of the sun from the ocean and connecting Martanda (born of an egg) to reappear as the sun, indicates once again the poetic conceptualization of the bond of origination among the gods, humans and nature. In the funeral hymn there are indications of the interfacing of gods, humans, animals and plants not only at the origin of life but also at the time of death. In another hymn, “Hymn to the Horse” the sacrificial Horse is identified with the sun, fire and with several other gods while its service as the earthly racehorse in the service of the humans is also duly acknowledged. Other hymns with reference to Agni and Soma, gods of the storm and to the solar gods like Usa and the Asvins are enriched with the same message of integration.[7]

Buddhism and ecology

Buddhism speaks that, the health of the whole is inseparably linked to the health of the parts, and the health of the parts is inseparably linked to the health of the whole. This means that caring for the environment begins with caring for oneself: ‘When our hearts are good, the sky will be good to us,’ says Venerable Maha Ghosananda of Cambodia. Buddhist practice makes one feel one’s existence is no more important than anyone else’s. If one treats nature as a friend and teacher, one can be in harmony with other creatures and appreciate the interconnectedness of all that lives. Buddha taught people to live simply and appreciate the natural cycle of life. Craving and greed only bring unhappiness, since demands for material possessions can never be satisfied and people will always demand more, so threatening the environment. This is why the real solution to the environmental crisis begins with the individual. According to Buddhism, the way you earn your livelihood – not killing, not stealing, not taking more than you need – all these are part of the Buddhist way of life. A livelihood that avoids harming others, such as trading in weapons, meat, alcohol or poisons – is in harmony with nature. Buddha taught Five Precepts for everyday life: One of the precepts is “Do not harm any living creature”.[8]

Confucianism and ecology

Confucianism is a system of thought based on the teachings of Kong Zi, Master Kong who lived from 551 to 479 BC. He is revered in Chinese history for the moral code he taught, which was based on ethics, humanity and love. “If the foundations of living are strengthened and are economically used, then Nature cannot bring impoverishment. But if the foundations of living are neglected and used extravagantly, then Nature cannot make the country rich”, observed his follower, Xunzi, Master Zi.[9]

“Do not do to other people what you do not want them to do to you”. And this golden rule in Confucianism is a key to understanding the Confucian understanding of ecology. The follower of Confucianism aspires to becoming a junzi (a sage) - a morally noble person who understands what is right and behaves accordingly. Directing this morality is the principle of ren - humanity (literally ‘personâ’) - that should inform the relationship between people and nature, extending our filial love for parents and family to all living things. We should therefore show love and care for nature in all our dealings with it. The rewards for this moral behavior are great, as Confucius follower Xunzi said: “Respond to it with peace and order, and good fortune will result. Respond to it with disorder, and disaster will follow”. “The truly good man first practices what he preaches and then preaches what he practices”, before we ask others to change their actions, we should first change our own actions. And then, and only then, we can preach what we practice. Confucius taught that humanity exists in an inter-relationship between heaven and earth. ‘Heaven’ is seen as the guiding force, giving direction to change and progress, while ‘earth’ provides the natural context and seasonal changes. Humanity has a moral task to work in balance with these other two forces. Confucian understanding of the universe as a holistic unity emphasizes the responsibility of every person to behave respectfully and with care to contribute to the general wellbeing of creation, acting as an orderly part of a collective effort. In this way the interests of humanity are served by looking after the interests of all of nature.[10]

Jainism and ecology

Jainism is one of the oldest living religions. Ahimsa (nonviolence) is the fundamental vow and runs through the Jain tradition like a golden thread. It involves avoidance of violence in any form through word or deed, not only to human beings but also to all nature. It means reverence for life in every form including plants and animals. Jains practice the principle of compassion for all living beings (Jiva-daya) at every step in daily life. Jains are vegetarians. Aparigraha (non-materialism) means limiting their acquisition of material goods and contributing one’s wealth and time to humanitarian charities and philanthropic causes. Anekantavada (non-one-sidedness) emphasizes the concept of universal interdependence and specifically recommends that one should take into account the viewpoints of other species, other communities and nations, and other human beings. Space is infinite but only a finite portion is occupied by what is known as the universe(Loka). Everything within the universe, whether sentient (jiva) or insentient (ajiva), is eternal, although the forms that a thing may take are transient. Jains preach and practice the principle of the duty of every human being to promote universal well-being (sarva-mangalya). All living beings have an individual soul (jiva) which occupies the body, a conglomerate of atoms. At the time of death, the soul leaves the body and immediately takes birth in another. Attaining nirvana and thereby terminating this cycle of birth and death is the goal of Jain practice.[11]

Jainism is fundamentally a religion of ecology and has turned ecology into a religion. It has enabled Jains to create an environment-friendly value system and code of conduct. Because of the insistence on rationality in the Jain tradition, Jains are always ready and willing to look positively and with enthusiasm upon environmental causes. They are in the forefront of bringing greater awareness and putting into practice their cardinal principles on ecology. Their programs have been modest and mostly self-funded through volunteers.[12]

Daoism and ecology

Daoism can be traced back to Shamanism, which spread into Mongolia and China at least ten thousand years ago. Daoism was formally established as a religion under the East Han dynasty, about 2,000 years ago. It has the main components of Chinese culture, and has exerted great influence on the Chinese way of thinking, working and acting.[13]

The four main principles of Daoism guide the relationship between humanity and nature: The Dao De Jing says: 'Humanity follows the Earth, the Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows the Dao, and the Dao follows what is natural.' Daoists therefore obey the Earth. The Earth respects Heaven, Heaven abides by the Dao, and the Dao follows the natural course of everything. Humans should help everything grow according to its own way. We should cultivate the way of no-action and let nature be itself. In Daoism, everything is composed of two opposite forces known as Yin and Yang. The two forces are in constant struggle within everything. When they reach harmony, the energy of life is created. Someone who understands this point will not exploit nature, but will treat it well and learn from it. It is obvious that in the long run, the excessive use of nature will bring about disaster, even the extinction of humanity. If the pursuit of development runs counter to the harmony and balance of nature, even if it is of great immediate interest and profit, people should restrain themselves from it. Insatiable human desire will lead to the over-exploitation of natural resources. To be too successful is to be on the path to defeat. Daoism has a unique sense of value in that it judges affluence by the number of different species. If all things in the universe grow well, then a society is a community of affluence. If not, this kingdom is on the decline. This view encourages both government and people to take good care of nature. This thought is a special contribution by Daoism to the conservation of nature.[14]

Islam and ecology

Islam teaches that Allah created humans to be guardians of His creation. In other words, nature does not belong to us to do with as we wish, but is entrusted by Allah to our safe-keeping. ‘The world is green and beautiful, and Allah has appointed you his guardian over it,’ taught the prophet Muhammad. The central concept of Islam is tawheed, or unity. Allah is unity, and His unity is reflected in the unity of humanity and nature. We must therefore maintain the integrity of the Earth, its flora and fauna, its wildlife and environment. Our responsibility is to keep balance and harmony in Allah’s creation. Islam teaches that we will one day be judged by Allah for how we have discharged our responsibilities following the guidance of Islam. Have we been good trustees, and have we kept nature in harmony? So there will be a day of reckoning. It is said in the Qur’an that Allah invites us to enjoy the fruits of the earth, but to avoid excess leading to waste, ‘for Allah does not love wasters.’ All these principals have been translated into practical directions for how to live, embodied in the Shariah, the laws of Islam. For example, Shariah law protects animals from cruelty, conserves forests, and limits.[15] Islam views the relationship of human beings with the environment as positive rather than as dominance or exploitation.[16]

Judaism and ecology

“WHOEVER IS MERCIFUL to all creatures is a descendant of our ancestor Abraham.” In the sacred writings of Judaism, Jews are described over and over again as “merciful people, the children of merciful people.” The Talmud even tells us that heaven rewards the person who has concern and compassion for the rest of creation. When God created the world, He made order out the primal chaos. The sun, the moon, and the stars, plants, animals, and ultimately man, were each created with a rightful and necessary place in the universe. They were not to encroach on each other. Judaism, of course, knows the doctrine of the world beyond death, but its central concern is with life in this world. Jews say, one can live in this world of righteousness without encroaching on the rights of other people, or of any of God’s creatures. The festivals of the Jewish religion do call upon us to stand before God, in the awe at His majesty, trembling before His judgments; the festivals celebrate, in joy, the cycle of the seasons of nature. The highest form of obedience to God’s commandments is to do them not in mere acceptance but in the nature of union with Him. In such a joyous encounter between man and God, the very rightness of the world is affirmed. The encounter of God and man in nature is thus conceived in Judaism as a seamless web with man as the leader and custodian of the natural world.[17]
The rabbis of the Talmud told that men were vegetarians in earliest times, between creation and the generation of Noah. In the twelfth century the rabbinic scholars, explained that animal sacrifices had been instituted in ancient Judaism as a concession to the prevalent ancient practice of making such offerings to the pagan gods. There has been a movement towards vegetarianism among very pious Jews. The rabbinic and spiritual teachers, and present Chief Rabbis of the Holy Land, have been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate mean of the Jewish moral teaching. They have been proclaiming the autonomy of all living creatures as the value which our religious tradition must now teach to all of its believers. Jews will move increasingly to vegetarianism out of their deepening knowledge of what their tradition commands, as they understand it in this age.[18]

Village religious insights

Indian rural religious traditions also bring in some ecological insights. The natural surroundings are divided into friendly and unfriendly areas. The area of the village itself and the farms or cultivated fields are generally treated as friendly, the faraway mountains and the forests are considered unfriendly. Both friendly and the unfriendly have to be propitiated for the welfare of the village. It is a tradition in many villages to persuade a strong animal to reside symbolically at the gate of the village. Such animals are known as Ksetra-pal. The most popular ones are the elephant (gajendra), the Hanuman and the wagh(tiger). Sakti or divine power is visualized as devi (goddess) or mata (Mother). Some times in the villages, certain diseases are also known as devi. The cosmic sakti is conceived as giver of life. The life giving goddess is also accepted as Gramadevata (village deity), thus connecting life forces of nature. “Liquids” of life such as water, milk is offered to the devis in a rural setting. There are several agricultural and harvest festivals to divinize the agricultural contexts, e.g, Holi, Dasara, Divali, Pongal, Onam etc. Folk religious traditions also honor sky and earth, thus, reflecting the cosmic structure. The prosperity of the village is symbolically ensured by entering into divine relationship with nature.[19]

Ecology and tribal culture

Ecology has become a very popular subject of study and a very specialized science lately. Humans depend on each other, and on nature and the destruction of natural resources to such an extent made human life danger. Human uses all his scientific knowledge to understand nature and how it works, he also tries to understand the relationship of both biotic and abiotic elements in the environment and how changes in one are affects other areas in the ecosphere. By understanding these man hopes to be able to control and manage the environment to maintain what is left and even recoup what has been lost. There is relationship between ecology and tribal culture; ecologists are using all kinds of sciences, including culture, looking for ecological solutions. There are various definitions for culture but simply stated, Culture is a way of life. Tribal culture then means tribal ways of living and thinking. They are a primitive social group.[20]

Tribal’s are primitive, backward and under developed, yet their philosophy of living from the land rather than on the tribal’s and forest in India today. Their economy is so bound to the land that if this is disrupted, they are in trouble. Thakur says, “There is drift in tribal and forest economy” because we cannot separate the tribal’s and the land. They usually have a manageable population, because of their backwardness and unhealthy surroundings that allow diseases to naturally cull their numbers. The tribal’s had their own land, and they have the spirit of sharing among their own tribe. As a whole the world is one tribe and that we are to share God’s resources. Tribal’s are monotheistic and see God as the creator of all things; every bit of land is sacred. They practiced shifting cultivation, and believed that the land belongs to the whole community. The cultivable land is allowed to grow, to live and to mature so that it can support man.[21]

Tribal wisdom for balanced ecology[22]

· As tribal’s one must see the sacredness of nature. It is God’s creation to be treated with fear and respect.

· The land belongs to God the creator. Man is simply a steward and the land should be shared among the members of the community.

· The tribal’s understood that the land has the power to bless and destroy. The whole ecosystem is called the mother earth which is a symbol and sustenance. It gives tribal his identity.

· The tribal’s see the world of nature as living, and it needs rest. This is the idea of Sabbath year in Hebrew culture and the idea of not cultivating the same plot in subsequent year.

· Man and nature are interdependent.

Dalits and ecology

Dalits are the aboriginal people of this land, their culture and tradition is very rich. Their social and individual life can’t be separated from natural resources since they are interlinked and inter dependant with environment. These people worship earth as one of the foremost Goddess, in each and every social activity. Dalit have been living here from generation to generation in this earth and they worship it because, they construct house, cultivate crop and even after the death, this soil gives shelter in the grave yard. When a Dalit awake from bed in the morning and put his feet on the earth he/she first salutes the earth and then starts walking. In respect to the mother soil they bring soil to the place of marriage. Worship of branches also speaks about the importance of natural resources and forest product in cultural life of Dalit. They offer newly produced food materials to their ancestral deity, because they have identified this land as producible for their survival. Respecting the crop and forest products and dedicating to those food materials to the deity shows the interdependency and interrelation of the Dalit community with natural resources in a great way. Apart from this many tree leaf, plants and bushes are being used as a medicines by Dalit community both for human being as well as animals. They depend on earth during living and after death they take complete shelter of soil. They doesn’t burn their dead body in fire, but burry in the earth after digging the soil. Human being and animal have been using water as an essential thing for living and that is why water is otherwise known as life, in Dalit culture water play a vital role. They think that this water is very sacred and everything goes right in life, if somebody applies over the head. This is one of the great activities during the process of marriage of Dalit community. The usage of surname in their community speaks about the relation of natural resources with Dalit community.[23]

Interreligious dialogue and ecology

The representatives of various religious traditions in the early 1990's put forward the Earth Charter.A vision of a common creation story has grown in both substance and urgency, especially through the scientific research and prophetic voices of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme.The proposal and the dream is that science, an enterprise that is available to all cultures and religions, is now providing the religious communities of the world, truly a common ground that will enable them to talk together and work together as never before. The creation story as science tells it is delivered in a way that all religions can, and must, hear it and “deepen” their own stories of how the universe originated or how it works. Hence, science and its understanding of our earth and universe are providing the arena for a new kind of interreligious dialogue.[24]

Sallie McFague has made clear, the scientific creation story is not meant to replace but to adjust and invigorate traditional myths and beliefs and relate them inter-religiously. Daniel Maguire tells for an “interreligious ecological dialogue” with Morality as primary; religion, God-talk, and a new theology. A methodology or procedure can vivify and direct an interreligious ecological dialogue. Persons from different religious come together to dialogue and then propose a course of action that their religious tradition would suggest. They will be acting, analyzing, struggling, and perhaps anguishing together as an interreligious community gathered around not a common creation story but a common environmental pain. The first step in gathering together will be a shared ethical praxis to relieve environmental suffering.[25]

The participants in our interreligious dialogues on the environment must include not just spokespersons for the religions but also spokespersons for the earth environmentalists, whether they are religious or not. As much as possible, these environmentalists should include environmentalists from the two-thirds world, for it is they can alert us about the links between social and ecological injustice and between social and ecological renewal. Larry Rasmussen has admonished that “all efforts to save the planet begin with hearing the cry of the people and the cry of the earth together.”By making sure that the cries of people-victims and of earth-victims continue to hold a privileged place in our ecological interreligious dialogue, we can hope, more assuredly, that our dialogues will be both more effective and better protected.[26]

Conclusion

All the religions in the world portray that humans and nature are inter dependent. The primitive religion of India and the primitive people lived close with nature they share the natural resources commonly. The nature was a good friend to them, when man’s greed increases it results in environmental crisis. Man does not turn back looking the past history to solve the problem but rather he thinks and found ways to solve the problem. As a result a common creation story based on science evolved. The very purpose of creation in any religion suggests for the care of whole ecosystem.

Bibliography

Marak C. Krickwin, Atul Y.Aghamkar (Ed), Ecological Challenge and Christian mission, CMS/ISPCK, 1998.

Sarkar.R.L, The Bible Ecology and Environment, New Delhi: ISPCK,2000.

Welinga, Bas. Towards an eco-Just society, Bangalore: CSA, 1999.

Webliography

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ijt/45_016.pdf

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ijt/45_015.pdf

http://www.arc.Daoism.org on 26.06.2014 at 9;42 am.

http://www.arc.Islam.org on 26.06.2014 at 9;42 am.

http://www.arc.confucianism.org on 26.06.2014 at 9;42 am.

http://www.arc.Jainism.org on 26.06.2014 at 9;42 am.

http://www.amacd.org publications on 26.06.2014 at 3:10 pm