Abstract
With its Vedāntic metaphysics and devotionally rich narratives, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa can provide valuable models for ecological care and preservation. Throughout the Purāṇa, we find narratives that can be harnessed in service of the environment, whether it be Kṛṣṇa battling the serpent Kāliya or Varāha lifting the Earth from the depths of the cosmic ocean. This article, however, will focus on a little-known narrative found in Book Four, namely, the Pracetās’ destruction, and eventual protection, of the Earth’s trees. The Pracetās’ narrative is significant for several reasons: (1) instead of simply venerating nature, the story demonstrates the challenge of balancing human needs and the needs of other life forms; (2) it accords agency to the Earth by giving the forest a voice within the narrative; and (3) it bridges the boundary between human beings and the natural world by building kinship relationships between them. This article will explore the ways in which Vaiṣṇava commentators have interpreted this episode as they attempt to negotiate the question: who has priority—humans or nature?
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Notes
An early version of this article was presented at a conference on Hinduism and ecology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, in 2017. I am grateful to the conference organizers and participants, two anonymous peer reviewers, as well as Tattvavit Dāsa and Rupa-Sanātana Dāsa for their helpful feedback on different drafts of this article. I am especially thankful to the Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University for a fellowship that provided time, space, and conversation partners to reflect on matters of ecotheology. Finally, I am indebted to Emily Perry, Dr. Christopher Fici, and Dr. Cogen Bohanec, as well as friends at Govardhana Ecovillage in Maharashtra, for thought-provoking discussions that helped shape my thinking on Hinduism and ecology.
For a discussion of Mehta’s motivations, see Haberman, River of Love, p. 146. For the religious underpinnings of the Chipko movement, see George A. James (2000), “Ethical and Religious Dimensions of Chipko Resistance.” Pankaj Jain (2011) has done an extensive study of the ecological and devotional facets of the Bishnoi community in his Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities.
Vijaya Rettakudi Nagarajan (1998) writes, “I want to point out here the false leap or slurring that we sometimes allow within environmental discourse between identifying a belief or a way of life as ecological because a natural object is imbued with sacrality and the belief that it is thus necessarily conservation-oriented.... More broadly, one could say that, although non-Western religions may have a reverence towards landscapes and therefore may contain innumerable embedded ecologies, these beliefs do not necessarily lead to ecological practices that resemble conservationism in the sense that the West has come to know it. While it is true, to a certain extent, that the infusion of the natural world with notions of sacrality does affect the behavior of people towards the natural world, I have misgivings about the implications that Indian culture, because of its notions of sacredness, has intrinsic checks and balances to restrain the rapaciousness of human greed.” (pp. 283, 284). Kelly D. Alley (2000, p. 357) and David L. Haberman (2006, pp. 132–133) have noted how faith in the auspicious and purifying power of river goddesses can engender a complacency towards, or even denial of, environmental pollution, while Lance E. Nelson (1998) has argued that Advaita Vedānta’s view of the natural world as illusive can justify indifference towards its ecological condition.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s eighteen thousand Sanskrit verses resists easy categorization into any genre of Sanskrit literature. Its narratives hold together tightly as a coherent literary work, and its linguistic expression is on par with the finest Sanskrit poetry. Nevertheless, the Bhāgavata is more than a collection of books; most Hindus encounter the text through its manifold retellings in vernacular literature and its performative traditions in liturgy, storytelling, dance, drama, architecture, sculpture, painting, and film. For an introduction to the contents, structure, and reception history of the Bhāgavata, see Gupta and Valpey, Bhāgavata Purāṇa: Sacred Text and Living Tradition (2013) and Bhāgavata Purāṇa: Selected Readings (2016).
For a thorough study of Govardhan Ecovillage and the theology that grounds the community, see Christopher Fici’s dissertation, “Where The Earth Meets the Divine is The Root of Devotion: Anticipatory Community and Regenerative Ecotheology in the Time of Climate Catastrophe” (Union Theological Seminary, 2020).
All references to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in this essay are given by book (canto), chapter, and verse number(s) (e.g., 4.18.7). When an entire chapter is referenced, I provide only the book and chapter numbers (e.g., 4.18). I have used Kṛṣṇaśaṅkara Śāstri’s edition (1965) for the text and commentaries, except for Prabhupāda’s commentary, which comes from the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust edition (1976).
The Pracetās story is spread across eight chapters in the Bhāgavata (4.24–4.31) because of an intervening narrative about their father, King Prācīnabarhi. The section of the story that is relevant for our purposes is found in chapter 30, and the narrative there largely follows the Viṣṇu Purāṇa’s version.
The celebrated fourteenth century commentator Śrīdhara Svāmī, in his commentary to 4.30.44, explains that Prācīnabarhiṣa’s absence allowed the trees to overrun the Earth: tadā hi prācīnabarhiṣaḥ pravrajitatvād arājake karṣaṇādy abhāvāt drumair bhūmiś channābhūt. Meanwhile, the eighteenth century Caitanya Vaiṣṇava commentator Viśvanātha Cakravartī explains the underlying reason for the Pracetās’ anger: They had been asked by Viṣṇu to rule the Earth, but how would they fulfill the Lord’s order if trees covered the Earth? Where would human beings live? Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda (1896–1977) follows Śrīdhara and Viśvanātha, but then identifies the problem specifically as the lack of agriculture: “The sons, the Pracetās, were ordered by the Supreme Personality of Godhead to come out of the water and go to the kingdom of their father in order to take care of that kingdom. However, when they came out, they saw that everything had been neglected due to the King's absence. They first observed that food grains were not being produced and that there were no agricultural activities. Indeed, the surface of the world was practically covered by very tall trees.... They desired that the land be cleared for crops.” (1976, v. 4.30.44).
An acknowledgment of resource-scarcity, albeit due to demonic leadership, is also found in commentaries on the Pṛthu episode. In verse 4.18.7, the Earth explains that she withheld seeds and herbs for the purpose of yajña, sacrifice, which was not being performed during Vena’s rule. The Śrīvaiṣṇava commentator Vīrarāghava, following Śrīdhara’s lead, argues that all plants would have been destroyed to their roots by evildoers intent on unrighteous consumption, and so the Earth had to protect the plants for future performances of yajña and other virtuous acts.
See, for example, Haberman’s survey of textual views of the pīpal (aśvattha) (2013, pp. 71–74). He concludes in his final chapter: “Current acts of tree worship, however, are perhaps the strongest ethnographic confirmation that beliefs about the sentience of trees that go back thousands of years are still very much alive and functional in India” (2013, p. 186).
Haberman (2013) describes his experience as an ethnographer of Indian tree-worship: “I asked many people on numerous occasions this question (most simply in Hindi: ‘Ye vriksh kaun hai?’ [‘Who is this tree?’]) and received a variety of answers without any hesitation or indication that it was an odd question. Whereas the human-nonhuman divide has characterized much modern Western thought, which insists that personhood applies only to human beings, here we encounter an application of the concept of personhood that includes more than human beings, extending even to trees. Many tree worshipers informed me, ‘Trees are persons just like you and me.’” (pp. 190–91).
Vijayadhvaja writes in his commentary on Bhāgavata 4.30.47: “pratipakṣabhūtair vṛkṣair dīyamānaṁ kanyādānaṁ niḥśaṅkaṁ kathaṁ saṅgacchata iti tatrāha... āptatve brahmaṇo vacanaṁ kāraṇaṁ ity arthaḥ.”.
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Gupta, R.M. Battling Serpents, Marrying Trees: Towards an Ecotheology of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. DHARM 4, 29–37 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-021-00097-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-021-00097-z