![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/oEXtyBMHm6I\/maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kenneth R. Valpey (Krishna Ksetra Swami)<\/p>\n
Introduction<\/p>\n
In recent decades we witness increasing public awareness about the profoundly damaging effects of accellerating human production, consumption, and mobility on ecosystems of the world; and this awareness is accompanied by a deepening sense of urgency that \u201csomething\u201d must be done to stop the current trends of environmental destruction. Environmental activism is now a mainstream activity for all sorts of individuals and groups, not least persons and organizations whose motivations may be termed \u201creligious.\u201d Religious traditions are being seen as potential resources of wisdom, providing both theological vision and spiritual conviction for fostering responsible and reformative attitudes and action to favor the environment. In view of this journal\u2019s present theme, Vaishnavism and the Environment, here I will explore representations of \u201cnature\u201d within the Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a (BhP, or Bh\u0101gavata)\u2014a text revered as canonical for followers of several Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions\u2014with the aim of considering how this text might serve as a resource not only for Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas, but also for other seekers and implementers of deep ecological thought and practice. <\/p>\n
In much contemporary environmental protection discourse, the word \u201cholism\u201d and its derivatives are typically employed. We are urged to \u201cthink holistically,\u201d to seek \u201cholistic solutions\u201d to problems, and conversely to \u201cavoid reductionism\u201d in dealing with the subject. Yet the means to profoundly change our ways of individually and collectively thinking and acting with respect to our environment seem to elude us, and this sense of failure and ineptitude is aggravated by the suspicion that as human beings we are in a profound if not essential way different and separate from nature, or that we have become alienated from nature. Accounts, or stories, about how this state of affairs has come about are typically central to religious worldviews. And conversely, or as a cure for the condition of alienation, accounts or stories are also typically offered by religious traditions. More broadly, it has been argued that one way our difference and separateness from nature is mitigated is by the telling and hearing of stories. \u201cStories unite us in a holistic way to nature, our common stuff of existence,\u201d writes William Bausch, and the Bh\u0101gavata might be seen as an affirmation of this understanding, with its predominantly narrative approach to its didactic purposes, in which nature frequently plays significant roles.1 My attention here will therefore be on nature as represented in the BhP\u2019s narratives. To be sure, the Bh\u0101gavata has much to say about nature (especially as prak\u1e5bti) in its propositional, philosophically analytical passages, but here I restrict this survey to narrative representations as equally important to the text\u2019s bhakti message. <\/p>\n
While the question about the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s possible contribution to broader (and deeper) contemporary environmental discourse gives impetus to this exploration, the more immediate matter I wish to explore has to do with the text\u2019s representation of the relationship between two emic terms, namely dharma and bhakti, and how various elements, aspects, or representations of \u201cnature\u201d come into play\u2014through narratives\u2014in the dialectic between these two themes that are so central to the text and its didactic purposes. What I hope to show, in a necessarily brief sketch, is how the text offers an integrated, or \u201cholistic,\u201d view of nature by presenting what we might call a \u201crealm of eternal possibility\u201d in the land of VrajaVrindavan which, as K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s divine \u201cplayground,\u201d challenges and invites us to conceive a proper human relationship to nature as being realizeable when a devotional (bhakti) relationship to a divine proprietor of nature, however one might designate such divinity, is established. <\/p>\n
Such relationships are portrayed narratively in the Bh\u0101gavata, especially in its charming Book Ten sacred biography of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, of which especially the chapters dealing with his birth and childhood, up to and including his killing of Ka\u1e41sa (chs. 1-44) are most celebrated. There is however, in the remaining eleven books, a treasure of narrative and teachings relevant to our topic. Here I will therefore begin with a sketch of some narrative representations of nature outside Book Ten, especially as these relate to the paradoxical desirability and impossibility of sustaining dharma and dharmic activity. I will then consider selected episodes from Book Ten in terms of some of the ways it represents nature in relation to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s interactions with his devotees. Finally I will offer brief reflections on the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s lessons about nature as potential contributions to current environmental discourse.<\/p>\n
Nature as object of desire, source of danger <\/p>\n
There are several ways nature is represented throughout the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s narratives outside Book Ten, all serving in varied ways the text\u2019s didactic purpose of challenging the human assumption that nature is to be, or can be, dominated for selfish purposes. Natural \u201celements\u201d such as water and earth, certain types or classes of flora and fauna, and land features such as mountains\u2014all can be found present and relevant in this discourse. And generally there is an implicit dividing line of classification to be discerned in these narratives, namely, between wild nature and tame nature. Human beings, in their efforts to follow dharma and thus to tame (or domesticate) nature, may sometimes succeed\u2014for some time\u2014but wild nature is ever threatening. With a few examples, let us see how this happens. <\/p>\n
In its opening lines, the Bh\u0101gavata states its subject and identifies its audience, simultaneously defining its scope by exclusion, namely, to reject \u201cdeceitful dharma\u201d (BhP 1.1.2). A dramatic high-point of Book One is a highly allegorical confrontation between Par\u012bk\u1e63it, the emblem of dharmic kingship, and Kali, the emblem of adharma\u2014personified opposition to and destruction of dharma. Their face-off takes place over Kali\u2019s mistreatment of a cow (the personified earth) and a bull (personified dharma), which throughout the BhP are both emblems of human culture in harmony with nature. Par\u012bk\u1e63it succeeds in protecting them, restoring the three destroyed legs of the bull (representing three of four portions of dharma) and the nourishing function of the cow-earth. But Kali is not killed, having begged Par\u012bk\u1e63it for his life; rather, he is subdued and contained by being given five places to reside (BhP 1.17.1-39). <\/p>\n
Par\u012bk\u1e63it is thus portrayed as a powerful ruler who, ever conscious of his duties as sovereign, displays mercy even upon Kali because of the latter\u2019s show of submission. Yet one knows that all is not well: The five places apportioned for Kali\u2019s residence are wherever there is prostitution, gambling, drinking, and animal butchery, and wherever there is gold\u2014places emblematic of moral turpitude and disregard for dharma. And such places, in the current age (Kali-yuga) abound. Further, Par\u012bk\u1e63it himself proves to be less than perfect, for in the next episode (1.18) he loses control of himself in a fit of anger, with dire, though ultimately glorious, consequences: <\/p>\n
Par\u012bk\u1e63it, a king (master of humans), is out hunting in a forest (in much Sanskrit literature, a sure signal that trouble brews). His intention to subdue nature in the form of wild animals is subverted by his own bodily thirst (a physical, biological, hence \u201cnatural\u201d need) getting the better of him. Upon not receiving welcome by the meditating sage \u015aam\u012bka (an ascetic, hence detached from the natural demands of the body, and a mediator between wild nature and the human world) King Par\u012bk\u1e63it vents his anger by draping a dead snake (nature\u2019s most dangerous wild animal, often representing the finality of fate) around the unresponsive sage\u2019s neck. Seeing this, the sage\u2019s young son angrily curses the king to die after seven days, to be bitten by a \u201csnake-bird\u201d\u2014a supernatural animal that (as the story later unfolds) has magical transformative powers to appear (and speak) as a human being.<\/p>\n
Before proceeding to the next example of nature within narrative, we may note the \u201cchain-reaction\u201d quality of the above episodes, whereby important representatives of nature (a cow, a bull; then water, and a snake) play passive but essential roles in the progression of the story as they become objects of contention. And contention is based on differing perceptions of nature\u2019s representatives. For Kali, the cow and bull, as recipients of his abuse, are objects of desire, whereas for Par\u012bk\u1e63it they are (talking!) subjects needing protection. Water similarly becomes an object of desire for Par\u012bk\u1e63it, whereas for the sage it is an object of indifference (as is the worldly status of the king). Finally, the dead snake, placed as an \u201cornament\u201d on the sage\u2019s neck with the intention of retaliating a perceived breech of etiquette, becomes, ironically, a symbol of Par\u012bk\u1e63it\u2019s death. As such the snake functions as a marker of fate\u2019s unrelenting movement underlying the particulars of natural and human interaction. <\/p>\n
But the snake also marks the end to Par\u012bk\u1e63it\u2019s worldly existence as a king and the beginning of his progress toward liberation, under the tutelage of another sage, \u015auka: The Bh\u0101gavata will be recited by one who is veritably immersed in nature, having earlier been identified with the trees of the forest (1.2.2) and who comes naked before the assembly to recite the text (1.19.27). Wise and renounced sages are generally the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s counterpart to kings, who generally show worldly ways and a domineering approach to nature. But whereas Par\u012bk\u1e63it is forced to immediately give up kingdom and comforts to seek his salvation, other of the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s kings turn to asceticism graciously in old age, retreating invariably to the forest to practice austerities in preparation for death. <\/p>\n
A noteworthy example of this pattern is the story of King Bharata in Book Five (ch. 8)\u2014noteworthy because part of the narrative\u2019s didactic aim is to point out the perils of asceticism. As if to say, \u201cJust renouncing the world and the exploitation of nature is not enough,\u201d Bharata\u2019s story illustrates the precariousness of identity as a human being: In the course of his rigorous observances of austerities in the forest, Bharata witnesses the premature birth of a deer-fawn as its mother, frightened by the roar of a lion, scurries for safety but dies in the process. Feeling compassion for the helpless fawn, Bharata \u201cadopts\u201d it, and over time, doting over the charming animal, his growing affection for it leads to distraction from his meditational practices. So caught up in thoughts of the fawn, at his own death he becomes, in the next life, a deer. In that animal form, however, Bharata is able to remember his past life as an ascetic human and therefore resolves to return to the spiritual path by keeping in the proximity of other ascetics for the remainder of its animal life. <\/p>\n
In this episode the central \u201crepresentative\u201d of nature is a wild animal which, like the cow and bull for Kali, becomes an object of desire. Unlike in the latter episode, however, this object is a m\u1e5bga\u2014a hunted animal (hence wild)\u2014rather than a pa\u015bu\u2014an animal to be tied (hence domestic). The Bharata episode can be read as a story of taming wildness that backfires: Bharata\u2019s attempt to tame the wild fawn, in its initial seeming success, leads to his own becoming a wild animal, albeit one that is not really wild, having \u201ctamed\u201d its passions as the ascetic yogin of the previous life. As the story unfolds in subsequent chapters (9-13), Bharata\u2019s next life after having been a deer is as a brahmin who, in his determination to attain spiritual perfection, acts as a ja\u1e0da, a dull-witted person, to avoid the distractions of social life. As it happens, in that condition he nevertheless becomes a spiritual preceptor for a king, Rah\u016bga\u1e47a, instructing him on the dangerous character of worldly existence by comparing it, significantly, to a forest.<\/p>\n
Whether as a locus of trouble for hunting kings or a place of shelter for sense-taming ascetics, one sees repeatedly in the Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a that forests are places of danger. Specifically the danger they embody is that of existence outside the reaches of dharmic behavior, by which is meant regulated behavior that essentially controls, restrains, or \u201ccontains\u201d sexuality and violence. The forest is ever present as the threatening counterpart to human dharmic order, an order that is exemplified by the brahmin, who embodies, or is supposed to embody, these restraints. But as the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s story of the brahmin Aj\u0101mila illustrates, brahmins can also be failures in self-restraint (though ultimately, by divine grace, they can attain perfection):<\/p>\n
As \u015auka relates to Par\u012bk\u1e63it (BhP 6.1-3), Aj\u0101mila had been a young, well-behaved and learned brahmin who displayed all the virtues of the brahminical order. But one day, while returning from the forest (!) where he had been sent by his father to collect some of its products for ritual purposes, Aj\u0101mila espies a \u015b\u016bdra man flirting intimately with an intoxicated servant woman. The sight ignites lustful desire in his own heart, and although he was already married, he takes the servant woman as his concubine. As the story unfolds, Aj\u0101mila abandons all decency in his efforts to please this woman, with whom, over some years, he fathers ten sons. Finally, in his old age, he can only dote on his youngest son \u201cN\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a\u201d such that, on his deathbed, it is this son to whom he calls out in desparation. Although the (wild-looking) minions of the lord of death, Yama, arrive at that moment to drag the sinful Aj\u0101mila to his just punishment, because he has pronounced a divine name of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u at the critical moment, he is saved by Vi\u1e63\u1e47u\u2019s agents. <\/p>\n
For our present purposes, we may note in this episode the role of a (nameless) servant woman\u2014an apparently low-class, possibly \u201coutcaste\u201d member of the female sex. In the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s semeiology, not unlike the forest, women are generally embodiments of danger and wildness\u2014that which dharma attempts but typically fails to restrain and control. For Aj\u0101mila, the (wild) servant woman becomes an object of desire, and as such she represents nature-as-illusion, whereby nature, in the context of human desire, is a manifestation of m\u0101y\u0101, the divine power that functions as magic or illusion to perpetuate the bondage of living beings in the endless cycle of death and rebirth.<\/p>\n
I have said that women are generally embodiments or representations of m\u0101y\u0101 because there are important exceptions\u2014for the most part model wives and mothers\u2014who exemplify dharmic behavior or, more importantly for the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s main didactic purpose, exalted levels of devotion (bhakti) to Bhagav\u0101n, especially K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. Notably in Book Ten, to which we now turn, it is the dairy-maids (gop\u012bs) in the pastoral setting of Vraja who exemplify what later Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions will deem the highest level of devotion to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. <\/p>\n
It is in Vraja that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a takes center stage to exchange joyful reciprocations with his most intimate devotees. Here, as we will see, nature\u2019s role shifts from being an object of desire and source of danger that foils the human effort to sustain dharmic order to being a subject of devotion and source of devotional moods that sustains human thriving as it fosters integration into a \u201cuniverse of feeling.\u201d2 <\/p>\n
Nature as subject of devotion, source of love <\/p>\n
As noted earlier, the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s over-arching didactic aim is to reject what it considers to be \u201cdeceitful dharma\u201d and to offer a positive alternative, centered in the cultivation of bhakti in relation to a supreme being, specified as Vi\u1e63\u1e47u\/N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a more generally and K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a more specifically. It is in the celebrated Book Ten that the \u201cpositive alternative\u201d is presented in its most concentrated form through the narrative of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s sacred biography, beginning with his birth in Mathur\u0101. Here, the opposition dharma versus adharma is largely shifted to the opposition of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a-and-his-devotees versus \u201cdemons\u201d\u2014a variety of political and family foes and their (often monster-like) agents. The \u201cstage\u201d for the enactment of this drama of godly and anti-godly struggle is, in the first forty-four of the book\u2019s ninety chapters, the land of Vraja, which is vaguely bordered by the city of Mathur\u0101 and has its effective center in Vrindavan, where K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a spends most of his childhood. Refering to Vraja as a \u201cstage\u201d is significant because, as later Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions will elaborate, the dramatic character of these accounts are highly conducive to the evocation of aesthetic relish\u2014rasa. Though it is beyond the scope of this article to elaborate on this important dimension of the Bh\u0101gavata, we will have occasion to call attention to aspects of this dimension of the text as we proceed. <\/p>\n
The land of Vraja may best be portrayed as \u201csuper-natural,\u201d in that all natural features and phenomena are represented as functioning under K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s direct supervision, even when the connection is not always apparent. General features of Vraja are that it is a place of simple, rustic abundance in which (despite regular \u201cnatural oppositions\u201d that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a invariably suppresses) cosmic functions, flora, and (nonpredatory) fauna exhibit aesthetically pleasing harmony. It is a place that serves as background, playground, and aesthetic enhancement for the enactment of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s sports and for the display of reciprocal devotional sentiments between K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and his devotees. And because all of Vraja is the place of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s presence, nature\u2019s proximity to him (as the absolute real, as emphasized throughout the Bh\u0101gavata) identifies it as similarly \u201csuper-real\u201d: Whereas ordinarily nature is, for bound souls, the jurisdiction of m\u0101y\u0101 in its illusion-generating and perpetuating feature, in Vraja nature, by virtue of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s direct presence, is under the jurisdiction of yoga-m\u0101y\u0101\u2014K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s artful and wondrous instrument for securing connections (yoga) between himself and his devotees. <\/p>\n
As we are here concerned with nature as portrayed in narratives of the Bh\u0101gavata, and since the narrative episodes of Book Ten\u2019s early chapters are the most well-known and popular passages of the text, we do well to consider briefly some specific ways that nature is portrayed in some of these episodes. I will categorize these in two general groups, namely, (1) supportive nature, and (2) (apparently) oppositional nature. <\/p>\n
In the category of supportive nature one may discern at least three themes, namely, (a) cosmos as a whole and totality, (b) nature as supportive background, and (c) nature\u2019s devotionally reciprocal bounty. <\/p>\n
\u015auka describes natural conditions at the time of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s birth as being those of extraordinary harmony (10.3.1-5). Stars and planets are all favorably situated (that is, astrologically the positions are all favorable, auspicious, and harmonious); waters of the earth are clear, calm, and attractive; the air is clean, fragrant, and pleasant to the touch; and the ritual fires attended by brahmins are undisturbed. In a kind of inversion of relationships between inner and outer dimensions, readers encounter this same harmonious universe within the mouth of child K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a (10.8). The reversal serves to enhance the picture of nature as wondrous (adbh\u016bta in Indian aesthetic theory) in two ways, namely, by identifying all of nature as being naught but K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s power, subsumed within his body; and by bringing in an element of humor. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a as childhood competitor with his older brother Balar\u0101ma, \u201cwins\u201d against the latter\u2019s accusations to their foster-mother Ya\u015bod\u0101 that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a had eaten dirt. To prove himself innocent, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a opens his mouth for Ya\u015bod\u0101\u2019s inspection, and what she sees\u2014 the entire cosmos including herself and her husband with baby K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2014temporarily throws her into a state of confused inaction. Here nature is graphically presented as a totality by virtue of its being contained within K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a who, significantly, is a small and therefore innocent (even if also mischievous) child. <\/p>\n
Nature as supportive background is represented in several passages within the Vraja chapters. For example, as introduction to an account of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and his cowherd friends\u2019 fighting and killing of the Ass Demon (Dhenuk\u0101sura, 10.15), \u015auka describes K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a entering a forest and enjoying its charming atmosphere. Significantly, there is mention that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and his friends are accompanied by their cows (domestic animals), and that the forest is pa\u015bavya\u2014suitable or fit for cattle (in other words, the forest offers nourishing grass). Also significant is that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a \u201cturned his mind to enjoy\u201d the pleasing atmosphere of the forest, the stately trees of which he amusedly notes have bent down their branches to offer their fruit and flowers to his brother, Balar\u0101ma (10.15.4-5). Although K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s comment to Balar\u0101ma is but a playful offer of praise, it is significant that here nature, as represented by trees, is conceived as having conscious, pious intention, namely to offer service to the divine brothers. <\/p>\n
The possibly best-known example of nature as supportive background comes in the five chapters of the Rasa Dance episode (10.29-33). Again, the pleasing atmosphere of the forest serves to inspire K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a to enjoy\u2014this time by dancing with the gop\u012b cowherd girls of Vraja. In this context nature provides enhancement to romantic feelings conducive to the coming together of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a with the gop\u012bs, and soon thereafter it becomes a locus\u2014even a foreground\u2014for the gop\u012bs suffering feelings of longing in separation from K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a after his sudden disappearance from their midst. What is particularly noteworthy in this connection is that as the gop\u012bs\u2019 longing intensifies, they begin to address the trees and other plants, earth, and animals \u201cas if they were mad\u201d (10.30.4-13). As mentioned earlier, whereas generally the Bh\u0101gavata represents women as embodiments of nature-as-illusion, the gop\u012bs are the exception par excellence, in that they are utterly and selflessly devoted to the highest divinity. And their status as exalted bhaktas is enhanced, rather than reduced, by their worldly status as (apparently) common village women; and it is even further enhanced, rather than reduced, by their \u201cmad\u201d (wild) behavior. Thus flora, fauna, and the gop\u012bs combine in this episode to represent nature in Vraja as the unfolding of the aesthetic rasa of conjugal love (\u015b\u1e5b\u1e47g\u0101ra, or m\u0101dhurya) which, the text would have readers understand, can only exist in such intensity in relation to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. <\/p>\n
The devotionally reciprocal bounty of Vraja nature, while implied in numerous passages, is exemplified particularly in chapter 21, in which the gop\u012bs describe the rapturous sound of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s flute, upon hearing which all the creatures and plant-life of Vraja rejoice. The peacocks dance madly, other creatures are stunned, cows \u201cdrink\u201d the sound with their upraised ears, and birds sit on the branches of trees and listen with eyes closed. Even the flow of rivers\u2019 currents is interrupted as they embrace K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s feet while offering lotuses, and clouds form in the midst of summer heat to offer K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a protective shade. And Govardhana hill (featured in the famous episode of its lifting by K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2014see below), in its high regard for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and his friends, offers drinking water, soft grass for the cows, edible roots, and caves (10.21.10-19). In short, the natural features of Vraja do not merely form a neutral, passive background for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s childhood and youthful adventures; rather, they are activated and, one might say, \u201csensitized\u201d by K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s presence into affectionate reciprocation, freely and consciously giving the bounty that each form of nature has to offer. <\/p>\n
Although nature as represented in Vraja is essentially benign and indeed devotionally supportive of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and his friends, at times it also provides agency for apparent opposition and life-threatening danger. The several episodes involving these oppositions all have a common conclusion: K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a effortlessly and playfully prevails over them, confirming his divinity and both astonishing and charming his friends. We can note three types of opposition here, namely (1) opposition of \u201celements\u201d (in particular wind, fire, and rain); (2) opposition from a variety of wizards and monsters (mainly the agents of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s arch-enemy, his uncle Ka\u1e41sa); and (3) opposition from secondary gods (in particular Indra and Brahm\u0101). Arguably the latter two categories may be included as features of \u201cnature\u201d in that, in the case of monsters and wizards, they represent wildness, and in the case of secondary gods, powers \u201cbehind\u201d nature. All three types of oppositional nature can be seen as invasive interruptions to the natural harmony that generally prevails in Vraja. However, they may also be understood as integral to the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s didactic purpose of establishing K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s divinity and supremacy through dramatic narrative. From the perspective of aesthetic relish, nature\u2019s oppositions serve to enhance the emotion of wonder (adbhutatva) and heroism (v\u012bratva). <\/p>\n
For our purposes it will suffice to illustrate these three types of opposition in the briefest manner to show this twofold feature of nature in its oppositional mode in Vraja. In the case of oppositional \u201celements,\u201d the Bh\u0101gavata describes two occasions when forest fires suddenly break out and threaten the lives of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s cowherd friends. In both cases, to the amazement of the Vraja residents, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a extinguishes the fires by effortlessly swallowing them (10.17 and 10.19), thus not only preserving their lives but also preserving the threatened forests and animals.3 In a similar act of \u201cenvironmental protection,\u201d when the noxious fumes from the breath of the monster-snake Kal\u012bya threaten to destroy the river Yamun\u0101 and its environs, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a takes the opportunity to perform an artful dance upon the beast\u2019s multiple hoods, simultaneously stamping it into humbly submissive agreement to depart from Vraja (10.16). Unlike Kal\u012bya, several more or less monstrous (often shapeshifting) beings sent by Ka\u1e41sa appear in the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s Vraja section to interrupt the harmony of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s pastoral pastimes and to give K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a opportunity to show his wondrous prowess. T\u1e5b\u1e47\u0101varta, the \u201cwhirlwind demon,\u201d P\u016btan\u0101, a monstrous witch, and Pralambha, appearing as a cowherd boy, are all shape-shifters who reveal their \u201ctrue\u201d forms upon or after showing their intentions to kill K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a (10.7; 10.6; 10.18). Or, there are Baka, Agha, and Ari\u1e63\u1e6da, appearing as animals (a crane, snake, and a bull, respectively), albeit in giant-sized versions of these forms (10.11; 10.12; 10.36). Typically\u2014for example in the case Agha\u2014the threat to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and his friends is to become devoured; or, in an inverse way in the case of P\u016btan\u0101, the threat is that baby K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a will be poisoned by sucking the witch\u2019s breast. In these, as in all cases, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s playfully effortless retaliations immediately kill each demon. In the case of P\u016btan\u0101, having had her life-air sucked out by K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s seemingly innocent breastsuckling, her corpse expands to a massive size, her various bodily features \u201cresembling\u201d natural features of the landscape, and thus becomes a playground for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a (10.6.14-18). <\/p>\n
Finally, there are two episodes in the early portion of Book Ten in which secondary gods offer opposition to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, the most well-known of these being Indra\u2019s sending destructive rains in retaliation for having been denied his usual worship rites by the Vraja residents on the advice of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a.4 With respect to narrative representations of nature, we may note three aspects of this episode. First, prior to Indra\u2019s attempted deluge, in a move to undermine the locally traditional annual worship of Indra, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a organizes a grand feast, to be prepared by the Vraja residents and offered to Govardhana Hill. As the offering is being conducted K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a assumes a giant form (b\u1e5bhad-vapu\u1e25\u201410.24.35) and declares \u201cI am the mountain (Govardhana)\u201d and proceeds to eat the entire food offering in that form. By identifying himself with Govardhana, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a identifies himself with the bountiful embodiment of nature, and vice-versa: Bountiful nature becomes a form of the divinity, in which form it becomes the recipient of human sacrificial offerings. <\/p>\n
Second, when Indra\u2019s deluge begins, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a acts the super-human hero by detaching Govardhana from the earth and lifting the hill up over his head, balancing it on the little finger of his left hand for a period of seven days to serve as a shelter for all of Vraja\u2019s residents. By placing himself and Govardhana between the destructive natural forces of rain sent by Indra and the Vraja residents, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a positions himself as the protector of his devotees against the onslaughts of any adversarial forces manifest in nature. In doing so, he both separates and joins together two aspects of earth\u2014its sustaining, supportive feature (the earth as a whole), and its protective feature (the hill, made to function as an umbrella). <\/p>\n
Third, when Indra sees his mistake and humbles himself before K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, with the help of the celestial cow Surabhi he offers a royal consecratory bath to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, in effect installing him as the actual Indra or celestial sovereign (10.27). The mood of this installation is celebratory, in which (reminiscent of the occasion of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s birth) the entire cosmos participates by showing boundless generosity and harmony. Rivers flow with a variety of pleasing liquids (n\u0101n\u0101-rasa); trees flow with honey; plants become ripe without cultivation (ak\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e6da-pacyau\u1e63adhaya\u1e25); mountains bear jewels forth to their surfaces (girayo \u2018bhibran un ma\u1e47\u012bn, 10.27.26); and all animals\u2014including predators (kr\u016br\u0101\u1e47i api, 10.27.27)\u2014become non-inimical. Indeed, the \u201cthree worlds\u201d attain thereby \u201cultimate satisfaction\u201d (par\u0101\u1e41 niv\u1e5btim) and cows saturate the earth with their milk (g\u0101m . . . payo-drut\u0101m, 10.27.25). This is the \u201crealm of eternal possibility\u201d that the Bh\u0101gavata presents its readers\u2014a place of harmony that becomes immediately possible to experience for persons who would participate in K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s l\u012bl\u0101\u2014devotional interactions.
\nAside from the Govardhana-l\u012bl\u0101\u2019s obvious \u201cstatement\u201d about the superiority of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47aworship over Indra-worship, it can be seen that the episode contributes substantially to the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s over-all picture of nature in relation to bhakti and in relation to dharma. In the Vraja setting, Indra\u2019s challenged authority over nature becomes for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a an opportunity to display superior prowess in such a way that all Vraja residents\u2014all beings in this realm of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s childhood and youth\u2014become charmed into deepened affection for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and thus for each other, within a supernatural space (under Govardhana) that is formed of nature\u2019s otherwise familiar features. <\/p>\n
Conclusion <\/p>\n
I have opened this survey of the Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a\u2019s narrative representations of nature with a question about the text\u2019s possible contribution to environmental protection discourse, suggesting that the vague term \u201cholism\u201d may receive some degree of specificity by considering the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s narrative approach to nature. I have further suggested that the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s approach to nature must be understood within its larger discourse of the relationship between dharma and bhakti, whereby the essential message is that dharma\u2014 whether construed as individual or as cosmic regulation and order\u2014can be effectively pursued only in light of the deeper principle of bhakti, which for the Bh\u0101gavata is experienced most fully in relation with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. Not yet mentioned, but surely important to be at least aware of, is that the Bh\u0101gavata places considerable demand on what we might call its \u201cserious\u201d readers or hearers. As with perhaps any major religious text, the Bh\u0101gavata urges its readers to practice what Paul Griffiths calls \u201creligious reading,\u201d\u2014the regular and repeated devotional reading that is in contradistinction to \u201cconsumer reading.\u201d5 While this might be viewed as adequate reason to reject the Bh\u0101gavata as inaccessible to a wider audience, alternatively such demand may be taken as a challenge to seriously explore, for example, the text\u2019s apparent \u201cmythic\u201d dimension, for possible illuminations of our current environmental predicament. And whether or not one may find enriching the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s portrayal of a supreme divinity as it presents K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a (or Vi\u1e63\u1e47u or N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a), the text\u2019s location of divinity within the world as an active and beloved personage who is able, by virtue of his omnipotence, to effect protecting, saving, and regenerating actions offers an arguably panentheistic perspective that reaches beyond abstract theologizing to concrete instance. <\/p>\n
Beyond its broader project of establishing such a theistic worldview in which, by the practice of bhakti, some form of harmony between human beings and nature may be realized, the Bh\u0101gavata can be read as a text that sharply challenges current human practices with respect to engagement with the natural environment. Among the several challenges offered by the Bh\u0101gavata that we might consider, I will mention only two\u2014one that may be seen as directed toward human society as a whole, and one that may be seen as directed toward the community of Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas.
\nThe first challenge contained in the Bh\u0101gavata is addressed to the vast majority of the human population, for which the regular consumption of animal flesh\u2014especially beef\u2014is a matter of unquestioned habit. There is well-founded recognition that animal food industries, especially of meat from cattle, account for the most significant environmental problems throughout our planet.6 Although this is known and recognized, meat industries thrive with the incessant demand of populations for whom little or no thought is given to the consequences. The Bh\u0101gavata presents a case for the protection of animals rather than their unrestricted production and slaughter, based on its theistic bhakti perspective wherein the supreme divinity takes personal charge for the protection of cattle as the basis of a peaceful and stable human society and economy. As we have seen, the dharmic king Par\u012bk\u1e63it does his best to protect a cow and a bull from the wicked Kali, but it is in the description of Vraja, where K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a wins the affection of all residents, that cow protection is fully sustained. In other words, within a worldview that sees animals as the subjects of a supreme, sensate being, rather than as objects to be consumed for one\u2019s own pleasure, an ethos of environmental wellbeing can be conceived and, the Bh\u0101gavata suggests, realized. <\/p>\n
The second challenge contained in the Bh\u0101gavata is, I would suggest, directed more specifically toward Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas, especially those for whom K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is most worshipable and for whom the land of Vraja that is located in present-day northern India is sacred. As industrialization and globalization impose themselves with ever-increasing rapidity in India, environmental degradation follows apace, not least in the land of Vraja. Considering the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s descriptions of Vraja as a lush, verdant landscape that is most dear to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, the relative lack of active concern by the Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava community about the ongoing degradation of Vraja is disturbing if not appalling. While some noble efforts are being made to protect and preserve the land of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, certainly much more effort, by greater and more organized numbers, is needed if its sacredness in its present manifest form is to be retained for future generations. <\/p>\n
The Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a offers many lessons about nature and environmental protection for discerning readers. Here we have considered these only in outline, necessarily bypassing numerous relevant passages that would more richly fill the picture of nature as related to bh\u0101gavata-bhakti. Finally we may simply note that the Bh\u0101gavata\u2019s picture of nature is a beautiful one: Nature has intrinsic value because it is created by a beautiful Lord, whose beauty is reflected in nature, which therefore serves as an important means for perceiving the beauty of the divine. And such perception, the Bh\u0101gavata argues, is what makes human life distinct, even as human life is meant to be in harmony with all of life in the shelter of its allloving creator. <\/p>\n
__________________________________
\n 1 Bausch, p. 32. Bausch discusses twelve characteristics of story in relation to faith, of which this is the second.
\n2 I am borrowing Klaus Klostermaier\u2019s phrase\u2014Klostermaier, 1988. For a useful brief overview of traditional Hindu views of nature, see Klostermaier, 2004, ch. 11, \u201cHindu Views of Nature\u201d.
\n3 In these episodes, fire is represented as a destructive force out of control. Elsewhere the BhP has much to say about controlled fire\u2014that which is the basis of sacrificial ritual and the energy of creative, especially sexual, activity. For an interesting exploration of classical Indian cultural representations of fire and water that is quite relevant to the study of the BhP, see Siegel, passim .
\n4 The other incident of \u201csecondary god opposition\u201d is known as brahm\u0101 – vimohana – l\u012bl\u0101 \u2014 the pastime of Brahm\u0101\u2019s bewilderment\u2014in which Brahm\u0101 \u201ctests\u201d K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s divinity by stealing away his friends, the cowherd boys, and their calves (10.13).
\n5 Griffiths. See especially the Introduction.
\n6 See, for example, Horrigan et al.
\n_____________________________________
\nBibliography <\/p>\n
Bausch, William J. Storytelling: Imagination and Faith. Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1984
\nBh\u0101gavata-Pur\u0101\u1e47a, trans. Dr. G.V. Tagare. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 2007.
\nGriffiths, Paul J. Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
\nHorrigan, Leo, R. S. Lawrence, and Polly Walker. \u201cHow Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture.\u201d Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 110, no. 5, May 2002.
\nKlostermaier, Klaus K. \u201cA Universe of Feelings,\u201d in Shri Krishna Caitanya and the Bhakti Religion, Studia Irenica 33, Edmund Weber and Tilak Raj Chopra, eds. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1988.
\nKlostermaier, Klaus K. The Nature of Nature: Explorations in Science, Philosophy and Religion. Adyar, Chennai: The Theosophical Publishing House, 2004.
\n\u015ar\u012bmad-Bh\u0101gavatam, trans. A.C. Bhaktived\u0101nta Swami. Singapore: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1987.
\nSiegel, Lee. Fires of Love, Waters of Peace: Passion and Renunciation in Indian Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983.
\n Bio for Kenneth R. Valpey: <\/p>\n
Kenneth R. Valpey, after receiving his D.Phil. from Oxford University for his study of Caitanya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava m\u016brti – sev\u0101, has since then been a research fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, and during the last three years he has been a Visiting Scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Together with Dr. Ravi M. Gupta he is presently preparing two volumes on the Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101 \u1e47 a, to be published by Columbia University Press. <\/p>\n[published in Journal of Vaishnava Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, Summer 2010, pp. 67-82] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In recent decades we witness increasing public awareness about the profoundly damaging effects of accellerating human production, consumption, and mobility on ecosystems of the world; and this awareness is accompanied by a deepening sense of urgency that \u201csomething\u201d must be done to stop the current trends of environmental destruction. Environmental activism is now a mainstream activity for all sorts of individuals and groups, not least persons and organizations whose motivations may be termed \u201creligious.\u201d Religious traditions are being seen as potential resources of wisdom, providing both theological vision and spiritual conviction for fostering responsible and reformative attitudes and action to favor the environment. In view of this journal\u2019s present theme, Vaishnavism and the Environment, here I will explore representations of \u201cnature\u201d within the Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a (BhP, or Bh\u0101gavata)\u2014a text revered as canonical for followers of several Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions\u2014with the aim of considering how this text might serve as a resource not only for Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas, but also for other seekers and implementers of deep ecological thought and practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49103"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88711,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49103\/revisions\/88711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hare](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/cPTQta1.jpg\")
By Krishna Ksetra Swami<\/strong><\/p>\n