Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 6 Article 6 1993 Ecology and Religion: Christian and Hindu Paradigms Klaus Klostermaier Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Recommended Citation Klostermaier, Klaus (1993) "Ecology and Religion: Christian and Hindu Paradigms," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 6, Article 6. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1075 The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Klostermaier: Ecology and Religion: Christian and Hindu Paradigms Ecology and Religion: Christian and Hindu Paradigms KJaus Klostermaier University of Manitoba NEITHER IllNDUISM NOR Christianity I. Eco-Religious Paradigms from the had or have 'ecology' as their central focus. A Hindu Traditions: contemporary Hindu or Christian ecology can be developed by rethinking and restruc­ A. The Vedic Paradigm: The Earth as turing traditional teachings, amplifying semi­ Dwelling Place for Gods and Humans nal statements and linking these up with the dominating concern of the late 20th century, The people who composed the Vedas must to 'save the earth'. In the context of a 'science have known a great deal about the nature in and religion' seminar some years back one of which they lived and from whom they drew my colleagues from the life sciences re­ their sustenance. They worshipped a great marked: 'What we need today is an ecological many gods, who were initially considered by messiah'. The task before us is that of the one Western scholars 'personifications of natural preparing the way for such an ecological phenomena,' such as Agni = Fire, Vaya = messiah, pulling together strands· of Hindu Wind,.Indra = Storm, Surya = Sun, Usaa = and Christian traditional symbolism and Dawn and so on. The devas were not so doctrine conducive to a religious ecology. much personifications of natural phenomena, Both Hinduism and Christianity have to do a as we kn.ow today, but the medium through good deal of repenting and making good for which Vedic people approached the powers neglecting and even violating nature. This is of nature, which remained mysterious, both not the place to repeat what Arnold Toynbee full of blessings and full of danger. The basic or Lynn White Ir said about the 'religious assumption underlying Vedic religion that led roots of the ecological crisis' but we have to . to the development of the elaborate sacrificial keep it in mind. We are treading on shifting cult was the mutual dependence of-men and grounds and even now we should not take it gods (and ancestors). Vedic society was for granted that the majority of either leaders convinced that it needed the favours of the or followers of Christianity and Hinduism gods for survival and prosperity: but it was endorse a concern for nature as a religious equally convinced that the devas needed the cause. In the following I am exclusively con­ sacrificial offerings made by men for their centrating on paradigms that have been or 'power'. Vedic people imagined to live in a are supportive of a religious ecology, leaving power-circuit, in which the crucial switch out Advaitic unconcern for nature as well as was constituted by the 'karma' of the sacrifice Christian hostility towards 'corrupt nature' and the 'Brahman' formula of the Veda. and other unhelpful positions. There was a deep-rooted conviction that one had to pay a price for everything - that Hindu-Christian Studies Bulletin 6 (1993) 7-11 Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 1993 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 6 [1993], Art. 6 8 Klaus Klostermaier 'nature' was not giving something for (conscious and 'moral') observation of a law nothing; that humans had to return something by which everything is governed. The articu­ to the 'powers' for the goods {'energies') lated dharma, as found in the law books, has which they received. It was apparently a further ecological dimensions insofar as it fairly marginal existence which was possible determines lawful ways of gaining a liveli­ under the given circumstances: survival was hood as against unlawful ones. The lawful precarious and threatened by famine, disease, occupations are those that conform to the enemies and wild animals. Every catastrophe general dharma - a dharma which protects was necessarily attributed to a break in the the existence not only of humans but also of power-circuit that connected the devas with nature in the widest sense. Dharma itself has the world of men: Vedic Indians did not as­ moral, social, political, as well as cosmic sume that the gods were capricious (like features. those of the Greeks) but they considered Viewing dharma as the eternal, immu­ them to be almost mechanically-acting ele­ table law governing the universe, ments in a power-circuit (deva - mantra - dharmasatra is essentially conservative: it dravya - vajamana) which was kept charged endeavours to provide a foundation for a by the sacrifices performed by the competent society which follows unchanging laws and members of the community (the Brahmins). thereby remains in permanent symbiotic If the power-circuit failed, the point where it harmony with its environment. Dharma had to be mended was the sacrificial karma. would not be dharma if it did not ensure the mutual co-existence of all partners in the B. The Paradigm of the Smrtis: Hu­ universe: it could not be the eternal law upon man Nature as Archetype which man's own nature is founded ifit led to a deterioration of living conditions. Indian Whereas ancient Vedic consciousness was tradition associates the visible deterioration shaped by the constant and inevitable inter­ of man's condition and of the quality of the vention by humans in natural processes - an environment to a truncating and mutilating of intervention which was fraught with danger dharma: dharma which had been four-footed and could only safely be mastered by appli­ during the first age of mankind loses foot cation of the ritualistically fixed vajna - the after foot - till it becomes almost totally developing societies of the Smrti period ex­ crippled during the Kaliyuga. It is not the perienced interpersonal relationships as the following of the law which brings about eco­ most crucial contact with reality. The logical (and other) calamities but the not fol­ governing paradigm through which 'nature' lowing of it. was perceived was no longer the power cir­ cuit deva - mantra - dravya - yajamana C. The Puranic Paradigm: The Tem­ operated through the vajna, but the vertical ple as Microcosmos hierarchical order of society patterned on the archetype of the hierarchically created human 'Classical' Hinduism as codified in the Pu­ nature. ranas was temple-centered. No village and The pivotal 'religious' activity was no no town was to be without its temple, and longer the offering of sacrifices for immedi­ divine presence and protection were thought ate material benefits but the conforming to to depend on possessmg images of God dharma - an all-comprehending 'law' with a housed in temples. The temple itself was social emphasis. Dharma has a variety of thought of as a microcosm. In numerous an­ 'ecological' implications. The well known cient Indian writings' we read that llie gods and often applied adage dharma raksato always play where groves are near, rivers raksati expresses the conviction that 'loop­ and mountains and springs, and in towns reinforcement' depends on human's with pleasure gardens'. Where such facilities http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol6/iss1/6 2 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1075 Klostermaier: Ecology and Religion: Christian and Hindu Paradigms Ecology and Religion 9 did not exist naturally, they could be created D. A Vaisnava Paradigm: The Earth by human ingenuity so as to attract the gods. as the Body of God The presence of water is essential above everything else: a temple could only be built Central to the theology of Ramanuja, the near water. If no natural water-course or lake great Sri Vaisnava acarya, is the so-called was available, an artificial pond had to be sariri-sarira bhava, the view that the rela­ created. The pursusa-mandala according to tionship between deity and earth is that of which the plan had to be drawn up again soul and body. While resting on Vedic per­ gives a cosmic dimension to the building to ceptions of the creation of the universe be erected on a specific spot. Similarly the through the sacrifice of the· primaeval pu­ foundation-laying and the consecration ritu­ rusa, it goes far beyond it in identifying the als contained numerous cosmic implicattons: physical universe as the body of Visnu and the actual structure had to be embedded in distinctive geographical features with the cosmic time and space. divine reality. Philosophically it expresses The harmony of nature represented by the total dependence of the creature on its the temple is not a purely external harmony creator. Practically it could lead to a rever­ as that created by the power-cycle of the . ential attitude towards the whole creation. Vedic vajna, nor a moral-social harmony The world becomes God's temple and de­ created by a dharma centered in the human serves to be honoured as one honours God's constitution, but a metaphysical one, realised presence in the image. Since Vaisnavism is a in a yogic interiorisation of the whole uni­ living tradition even today, its paradigm verse, coming from the centre of being itself, could be used to develop a comprehensive into which meditation has brought the archi­ religious .ecology, without compromising tect - the creator of the world in miniature.