Environmental ethics in the Hindu Vedas and Puranas in India
African Journal of History and Culture
Format:
Journal Article
Publication Date:
2012/01//
Pages:
1 - 3
Sources ID:
36266
Collection:
Contemplation and Ecology
Visibility:
Public (group default)
Abstract:
(Show)
The Indian religious traditions are intertwined with equally disparate cultural, social, linguistic,philosophical and ethical systems that have developed over a vast history, compounded with
movement of peoples, foreign interventions, and internal transformations in structures and identities
experienced over time. How does one then begin to talk about environmental values and concerns in
the Indian religious traditions? Although, these can be randomly and selectively discussed, this study
aims at tracing the contours of certain highlights and tensions in the traditional approaches to the
question of the environment. Of special significance, the study will look at Brahmanical-Hindu, Jaina
and Buddhist traditions, in their ancient to classical modalities, concluding with some contemporary
responses to the supposed impact, or lack thereof, of traditional perspectives to ecological problems
facing a rapidly modernizing South Asian nation-state, from Gandhi to Bhopal and after.