Booklet of the BSSCR Conference on Belief, Believe and Behaviour (original) (raw)
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South Asian Religions and the Natural Environment
SOUTH ASIAN GODDESSES AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT, 2023
If Hinduism places so much importance on 'nature' and has been undergoing a revival since the mid-nineteenth century, why has the South Asian environment deteriorated so rapidly and with disastrous consequences for both nature and human health? This is the central question that this chapter explores. The chapter assesses what the classical texts of Hinduism say about the 'environment' and whether this addresses the question of the human agents that have been polluting it. It also speaks about the roles of various states and population growth over the long long run. The second part of this essay comments on the individual chapters in this collection. Hindu, Jain, tribal and Buddhist religious systems are considered. to varying degrees/
In Indian thought the sense of intrinsic value is posed in the basic quest of knowing the place and role of man with respect to interrelatedness of ecological cosmology, i.e. ecospirituality, receiving more attention today under New Age Movement. The question of moral duty of human being to the community and nature is the subject of imposition of inherent deep thought, i.e., ethical values, since ancient past in Indian thought. Imposition of value appears as human response to the world, in association with nature, and in realization to the cosmic interrelatedness. This is an issue of human duty, a sense of realization, a wish to promote culture and civilisation for human development. The idea of nature and human integrity in Hindu thought depends upon ways in which people see and experience themselves, their sense of attachment to nature, and their ways of maintaining this. It is through symbolism, the main expression of mythological understanding, that one can gain insight into the relationships of humanity to nature. Religion (dharma) plays a vital role in the Hindu quest for understanding and practicing harmony between nature and humanity that result to the formation of a cosmological awakening, i.e. ‘transcending the universe’. The importance and applicability of such new consciousness is a good sign in promoting global humanism in the 21st century. The central monistic philosophy of Hindu tradition, Vedanta, recog¬nizes that ‘fundamentally all life is one, that in essence everything is reality, and that this oneness finds its natural expression in a reverence for all things’. This essay attempts to present ecospiritual contextuality and its vitality concerning environmental sensitivity in India, illustrated with myths, traditions and symbols that evolved in the past and continued in the passage of time, and is on the way to critical appraisal. Keywords: Ecospirituality, Hindu tradition, Gross elements, spirit of place, dharma, new vision.
Human faith grows up from ingrained belief, (both positive and negative) that he inherits from the community in which he is born. The strength enshrined in the faith is that it develops through his continuous interaction with the community and his commitment to the community faith and belief. With the increased sophistication in life, the community belief may come in interaction with other forces but in reality the strong beliefs receive legal status, while the negative belief fades out . Thus the evolution of a community from the traditional societal structure to a sophisticated society strengthens positive faith and ignores superstition .However, the community belief and faith becomes indispensible. The present study while referring the history of community belief tries to highlight the impact of it in Asian society .
The diversities, distinctions and varieties of landscapes and regional/ sub-regional traditions scattered and rooted in different parts of India and overall their interconnectedness by the historical-cultural bonds converge into the mosaic of landscapes – a complex web of cultural whole. That is how many disciplines in their own ways and also with interfaces and interaction with others too worked in the broad realm of ‘cultural geography’ (see Singh 2012a). That is how cultural studies using historical, archival, ecological, literary, travelogue, ethnographic and associated methods to investigate localised patterns of religion, language, diet, arts, customs and any associated attributes are concerned with some of the aspects of cultural geography. Idea of place-based ecoliteracy and visioning India has open a new dimension of cultural understanding (Singh 2014 c). Sacrality, symbolism and formation of landscapes in ancient India were the nexus of Nature-divine-Man interaction, which has been now taken as emerging philosophy of nature conservation (Singh and Rana 2016 e). This idea is comparable to deep sense of ecospirituality and cosmology (Singh 2013 e and f; Singh 2016 c ; also Singh 2013 a) that ultimately will help in harmonizing global order (Singh 2012 c), and also comparable to the geographical thoughts in ancient India (Singh 2016 d), and searching similarities and archetypal relationship in the works of Leonardo da Vinci (Singh 2014 b). The image of ‘incredible’ India is further shines into the mirror of ‘make in India’, ‘shining India’, ‘skilful India, and above all ‘harmonising India’. The studies in cultural geography of India will take these issues in coming future. We have to realise and reveal for changing the mind setup, and mass awakening in making our culture harmonious, peaceful and happy; remember the core concern of geographical practice is to make happy places and spiritual landscapes. See for earlier REPORTS: 148.04; 149.04; 170.8; 171.08; 379.12; current one 460.16.
RELIGION AND COGNITION: A CASE STUDY ON RIVERINE ECO-SETUP IN UPPER ASSAM
The riverine eco-setup constituted by river Bramhaputra and its tributaries is an unique geographical condition in the upper Assam. The area witnesses the recurrent floods resultant the sand deposition and soil erosion. This phenomenon is the main cause of the rapid change in biodiversity. The adaptive mechanism of the people inhabited in this area is important in the context of the rapid changes. The present discourse is an attempt to evaluate the religion and cognition of the communities of this area based on worldview and folk taxonomy under this backdrop.
Numerous indigenous religious traditions express connection between people and the spirit world, through specific powerful places on the landscape. Such place-based spiritual perspective locates humans within networks of reciprocal relations with other living and non-living beings, and offers an avenue into examining the activity of nonhuman nature in shaping human perceptions and practices. A place-based view that locates spiritual beings in specific locations on the landscape shifts the understanding of nonhuman nature away from a utilitarian perspective that sees forests, rivers, and soils as natural resources to be used with maximal efficiency, and toward a more inclusive perspective that values aspects of the landscape beings, or homes of beings, with their own inherent values, purposes, meanings, and destinies. In the eastern Himalaya, autochthonous deities, believed to be the original owners of the land, were not eradicated by Tibetan Buddhism but were incorporated into its pantheons and practices, creating a mechanism that mediates the relationships and strengthens the connections between people to their landscapes. The beliefs and practices of Tibetan Buddhists of Bhutan engage with specific places on the landscape to create and nurture the habits of mind that recognize forests, soil, rivers, mountains, and wildlife as beings worthy of respect. The prohibitions and requirements of autochthonous deities have shaped human settlement, land use patterns, and local custom, as well as the placement of religious structures. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted on repeated visits to Bhutan between 2001 and 2008, I show how religion shapes the landscape in Tibetan Buddhist parts of Bhutan by dictating land uses and proscriptions in certain sites. Spiritual and religious perceptions shape the landscape through (1) land use restrictions that may prohibit agriculture, trespass, resource collection in places where deities are believed to live; (2) siting of religious monuments; and 3) prohibitions against construction that result from beliefs that deities reside in the land. Globalization is slowly and subtly shifting deity beliefs and associated practices on the landscape. Increased interaction between Bhutan and with the world beyond the Himalayan and Tibetan regions is having the paradoxical consequence of increasing interest in sacred natural sites and spiritual landscapes, while intensifying the forces that jeopardize the cultural and ecological survival of these same landscapes. Greater understanding of the geographic distribution and extent, ecological characteristics, and socio-economic aspects of the sacred natural sites could contribute to greater appreciation and protection of their cultural and ecological aspects, and could help shift ecological and geographical thinking toward a view that values the agency of non-human nature and the natural landscape.
Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements: xii-xv; Foreword‒ Dallen J. Timothy (USA): 1-4; Sacredscapes & Sacred Places and Sense of Geography: Some Reflections‒ Rana P.B. Singh (India): 5-46; Pilgrimage and Literature‒ Jamie S. Scott (Canada): 47-94; Sufi views on Pilgrimage in Islam‒ Muhammad Khalid Masud (Pakistan): 95-110; The ‘Architecture of Light’: Between Sacred Geometry to Biophotonic Technology‒ Aritia Poenaru & Traian D. Stãnciulescu (Romania): 111-130; Kailash– the Centre of the World‒ Tomo Vinšćak and Danijela Smiljanić (Croatia): 131-152; Rolwaling: A Sacred Buddhist Valley in Nepal‒ Janice Sacherer (Japan): 153-174; Landscape, Memory and Identity: A case of Southwest China‒ Zhou Dandan (China): 175-194; The miracles of Mt. Wutai, China: the ambiguity of Sacred place in Buddhism‒ Jeffrey F. Meyer (USA): 195-210; Sacred Spaces, Pilgrimage and Tourism at Muktinath, Nepal‒ Rana P.B. Singh (India) & P.C. Poudel (Nepal): 211-246; The Mythic landscape of the Buddhist places of Pilgrimage in India‒ Rana P.B. Singh & Pravin S. Rana (India): 247-284; Current Jewish Pilgrimage-Tourism‒ Noga Collins-Kreiner (Israel): 285-300; The road to St. James, El Camino de Santiago: the spirit of place and environmental ethics‒ Kingsley K. Wu (USA): 301-320; Sacred Places of Japan: Sacred Geography in the vicinity of the cities of Sendai and Nara‒ James A. Swan (USA): 321-334; the contributors: 335-336; Index: 337-343; Editor: 344. 26 Jan. 2011, 22x 15cm, ca. xiv + 344pp, 16 tables, 51 figures, <ca. 122,100 words> Hb, ISBN (10): 81-8290-227-4. Rs 1495.oo/ US$ 55. Shubhi Publications, New Delhi.