ecology, deep ecology and literary ecology -...

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Chapter I Ecology, Deep Ecology and Literary Ecology Ecology extends to diverse human interactions like aesthetics, ethics, politics and economics. It is a multidisciplinaty enterprise and does not fit precisely into one channel of scientific enquiry. Ecology ranges frorr~ reductionism in the study of individual species, populations, through less reductionist approaches in the study of communities, to the holistic in studies of the totality of communities on earth. The antc!cedents of modern ecology and ecology as a science extend to the origins of humanity itself. Conscious observations of natural surroundings can be traced to ancient civilizations. Formal and systematic study of environment in the West began in Greece in the third and fourth centuries B.C. Ecology was formerly called 'natural history.' There were Aristotle and Theophrastus among natural historians. The Western Tradition of scientific observations started by Theophrastus reached its zenith in the works of renowned natural historians like Charles Darwin. Hanns Reiter in 1885 appears to have been the first to combine the Greek words oikos [house] and logos [study of] to form the term ecology (Kormondy 3). The German biologist Ernest Haeckel sharpened the perspective and gave clear direction to this branch of

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Page 1: Ecology, Deep Ecology and Literary Ecology - …shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/535/7/07_chapter1.pdf · Ecology, Deep Ecology and Literary Ecology ... economy of nature--the

Chapter I

Ecology, Deep Ecology and Literary Ecology

Ecology extends to diverse human interactions like aesthetics,

ethics, politics and economics. It is a multidisciplinaty enterprise

and does not f i t precisely into one channel of scientific enquiry.

Ecology ranges frorr~ reductionism in the study of individual species,

populations, through less reductionist approaches in the study of

communities, to the holistic in studies of the totality of communities

on earth. The antc!cedents of modern ecology and ecology as a

science extend to the origins of humanity itself. Conscious

observations of natural surroundings can be traced to ancient

civilizations. Formal and systematic study of environment in the

West began in Greece in the third and fourth centuries B.C.

Ecology was formerly called 'natural history.' There were Aristotle

and Theophrastus among natural historians. The Western Tradition

of scientific observations started by Theophrastus reached its zenith

in the works of renowned natural historians like Charles Darwin.

Hanns Reiter in 1885 appears to have been the first to combine the

Greek words oikos [house] and logos [study of] to form the term

ecology (Kormondy 3). The German biologist Ernest Haeckel

sharpened the perspective and gave clear direction to this branch of

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enquiry by defining and also infusing substance into the term,

ecology. Haeckel used the term in 1866 in the following statement

published in 1870:

By ecology wc? mean the body of knowledge concerning the

economy of nature--the investigation of the total relations of

the animal both to its inorganic and to its organic

environment: including above all, its friendly and inimical

relation with those animals and plants with which it comes

directly or indirectly into contact--in a word, ecology is the

study of a l l the complex inter relations referred to by Darwin

as the conditions of the struggle for existence. The science

of ecology, often inaccurately referred to as 'biology' in a

narrow sense, has thus far formed by the principal

component. of what is commonly referred to as 'Natural

history'. (K.ormondy 3-4)

Williarn Howarth in his essay, "Some Principles of Ecocriticism"

remarks:

Haeckel inflected the term natural economy to ecology, or

oikonomia to oikologia, house mastery to house study, a shift

that changed the status of species from resources into

partners of a shared domain. Haeckel's science reflected his

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socialist convictions. I n an era torn by violent national strife,

from civil war in America to clashes throughout Europe,

Haeckel considered how organisms sustain complex social

alliances that shape their number and distribution.

Comparing data on the birth, death, and migration of

species, he found that organisms replicate their native form

in widening gyres, from organism to population to

community. Each level of these surroundings or

'environment:;' creates complex, interrelated networks. (73)

By 1913, the term ecology became institutionalized with the

formation of the British Ecological society and shortly thereafter, in

1915, the Ecological Society of America. It was duririg 1960s the

term became popular. Then the field of ecology was determined

and the British ecologist A. Macfadyen's broad definition became

commonly accepted:

Ecology conc:erns itself with the interrelationships of living

organisms, pl3nt or animal, and their environments; these

are studied with a view to discovering the principles, which

govern the relationships. That such principles exist is a basic

assumption--.and an act of faith--of the ecologists. His field

of inquiry is no less wide than the totality of the living

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conditions of the plants and animals under their observation,

their systematic position, and their reactions to the

environment and to each other. (Kormondy 5)

The usage of the term was extended politically to encompass a

philosophy that broadly incorporated a variety of environmental

concerns. Since the environmental crisis of 1960s in the West,

there have been numerous active environmental organizations. The

political movement called "Greens" in Germany is the most famous

and influential among them. Charlene Spretnak and Fritjof Capra

make the following prediction:

An anthropocentric world view that has licensed the human

species to exploit the rest of nature as i f from above and

outside it, will give place to an ecological world view. We

shall recognize that survival and self-realization alike require

us to an act: what we really are--integral parts of an

ecosystem much larger, more complex and more powerful

than ourselves. (Green Politics XX)

I n her 1984 lecture of the Schumacher society of America, later

published under the title "The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics"

(Green Politics 230-258) the ideas are described in detail and she

uses the term "deep ecology" for designating the new ecological

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worldview. The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess popularized this

term in the early 1970s. Arne Naess introduced this term into

environmental literature in 1972 in his article 'The Deep Ecology

Movement." It was based on a talk he gave in Bucharest in 1972 at

the Third World Future Research Conference. It is distinguished

from "shallow ecology." Arne Naess's 1973 essay --"The Shallow

and the Deep, Long Range Ecology Movement: A Summaryn--is the

source of the term 'deep ecology.' He distinguished between TWO

varieties of environmentalism. One, which he called "shaliow," is t h e

sort of environmentalism which fights "against pollutior! and

resource depletion" as problems for the health and affiuence of

peoples in the developed countries." I n contrast, he suggested

"deep ecology" as a new paradigm that posits humans as

intrinsically (or internally) related to the rest of nature, yielding

some notion of bioc:entric egalitarianism. He explicitly introduced

global and political dimensions into his conception of deep ecology,

calling for an "anti-class posture" and "local autonomy and

decentralization." He acknowledged that, although his position may

be inspired by ecology understood as a science and a prsctice, deep

ecology was explicitly normative, being based in what he callea an

"ecosophy," which h*? saw as a "philosophy of ecological harrnony or

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equilibrium" (Andrew McLaughlin 2). Fritjof Capra distinguishes

them in the following way:

Shallow ecology is human--centered. It views humans as

above/outside nature, as the source of all values where

nature has only instrumental or 'use' value. Deep ecology

does not separate humans--or anything for that matter--

from the natural environment. It views humans as just one

particular strand in the web of life. (The Web 7)

There are thousa?ds of grass root environmental groups all over

the world. Such movements are broadly classified by Arne Naess

into two -shallow ecological movements and deep ecological

movementsldeep long range ecological movements. Comparing

these two, Joni Seager remarks:

Both these movements posit the need for the affirmation of a

'deeper' human relationship with the earth-a relationship

that a t its best comprises elements of mysticism, awe and an

appreciation of the 'sacred' in nature. Both movements couctl

their environmentalism in 'woman identified' terms, and deep

ecologists are the only environmentalists, other than

ecofeminists to explicitly assent an affinity with women's

culture and feminist politics. (223)

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Joni Seager remarks that the European encounter with new

lands is presented in male imagery (Earth Follies 231). At the deep

layer of philosophical worldview the imperialist or progressive

tradition is human-centric as well as male centric. Seager has

explicated that the ecological approach articulated by Arne Naess,

that is 'deep ecology,' "poses 'deeper' questions about life on earth

than mainstream environmentalists ask" (223). Seager adds:

Deep ecology is rooted in recasting the religious and

philosophical interpretation of human relations with the

necessity of shifting from human centrism to biocentrism, a

commitment to revaluing humanity's oneness with nature

and an appreciation of the intrinsic worth of all life forms.

(223-224)

The two terms, human-centric and male-centric, have to be

explicated before attempting any deep ecological study. Lynn White

in "Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis" remarks 'the Western

anthropocentric Christian philosophy is a root of the world wide

ecological crisis: "

Christianity inherited from Judaism not only a concept of

time as non- repetitive and linear but also a striking story of

creation. By gradual stages a loving and all-powerful God had

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created light and darkness, the heavenly bodies, the earth

and all its plants, animals, birds and fishes, Finally, God had

created Adam and an after thought, Eve to keep man from

being lonely. Man has named all the animals, thus

establishing h ~ s dominance over them. God planned all of this

explicitly, for -nanfs benefit and rule; no item in the physical

creation had any purpose save to serve man's purposes.

And, although man's body is made of clay, he is not simply

part of nature: he is made in God's image (9).

The origin of the concept of the human centrism is generally traced

to the Western Christian philosophy and Renaissance humanism,

and deep ecology displaces anthropocentrism with biocentrism.

Christopher Manes in "Nature and Silence" (Glotfelty, ed.

Ecocriticism 15-29) explains that deep ecology has "stressed the

link between listening to the nonhuman world" and "reversing the

environmentally destructive practices modern society pursues" (16)

and that biocentrism "brings to bear the science of ecology upon

exclusionary claims about the human subject." (24) Manes adds:

From the language of human one could get the expression

that Homo sa liens is the only species on the planet worthy

of being a topic of discourse. Ecology paints quite a

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different, humbling, picture. I f fungus, one of the 'lowliest' of

forms on a humanistic scale of values, were to go extinct

tomorrow, the effect on the rest of the biosphere would be

catastrophic, since the health of forest depends on

Mycorrbyzal f.~ngus, and the disappearance of the forest

would upset t:he hydrology, atmosphere, and temperature of

the entire globe. I n contrast, i f homosapiens disappeared,

the event would go virtually unnoticed by the vast majority

of Earth's life forms. As hominids we dwell at the outermost

fringes of important ecological processes such as

photosynthesis and the conversion of biomass in to usable

nutrients. (24)

Discussing the 'Scientific Foundation' (26) of ecological

assumptions, Manes arrives at a "viable environmental ethics" ( 26 )

and also at the importance of desilencing/voicing nature. Deep

ecology argues for such a significant retrieval:

A viable environmental ethics must confront 'the silence of

nature1-the fact in our culture only humans have the status

as speaking srrbjects. Deep ecology has attempted to do so

by challenging the idiom of humanism that has silenced the

natural world. ( 2 6 )

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Up to recent times, the scientific tradition has been synonymous

with the imperialist. 7-he publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Sorinq

[ l9621 and similar books from scientists themselves and the

worldview behind counter cultural paradigms have changed this

tradition. To use the term of Ted Hughes, "the environmentai

revolution" (Winter Pm 128-135) has set in. "To most of t h e

world, Rachel Carso.ifs Silent S ~ r i n g came as an absolute shoci<"

(129).

Don Scheese, in his Nature Writina: The Pastoral Imoulse in

America, relating the advent and advancement of social ecology,

nature writing and ecological criticism, remarks that ecocritics hold:

The nonhuman environment is a dominant character in the

worlds both inside and outside the text; that the authors

themselves subscribe to this belief; and that an important

interaction occurs between nonhuman environment and

author, place and text, which can result in a paradigmatic

shift in the consciousness of the protagonist from an ego-

centered (anthropocentric) view of the world to an eco-

centered (biocentric) perspective ... Ecocriticism rejects

absolutely and considers absurd and dangerous the claim of

poststructural~sm that "there is no nature." (8-9)

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According to him, two historical developments occurred during

1920-1960 that did transform the genre of nature writing and they

are the emergence of ecology as "a legitimate scientific discipline"

and "a campaign for wilderness preservation" (3). Don Scheese

continues:

Fieldwork once again--nature writing of travel and discovery

of 'new worlds' of colonial explorers of the three centuries

prior to the twentieth had been the result of field work--

became a significant component of scientific study as

ecologists explored wetlands, prairies, and forests, studying

individual spezies and their roles in ecosystems. As species

and habitat continued to diminish, a renewed push was made

for preservation of natural areas, led by such newly formed

groups as the Wilderness Society, founded in [USA] 1935.

(30)

Three events since 1960 have been recognized as paradigmatic

moments in the rise modern environmentalism resulting in further

transformation of the genre of nature writing.

The first was the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel

Carson in 1962. Initially appearing in The New Yorker and

then published as a book, Silent S ~ r i n q is a scientific

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monograph by a marine biologist and a best-selling

nonfiction trilogy on the sea. Carson attacks the chemical

industry for is production of pesticides and herbicides used

indiscriminately, resulting in the deaths of countless animals

as the chemicals work their way up the food chain. Carson

eventually won at least a partial victory: commercial use of

DDT was banned in 1971. Silent S ~ r i n q also initiated a new

kind of nature writing, one that would proliferate in the late

1980s: the literature of apocalypse. The second landmark

event occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the

Apollo astronauts took a series of photographs of Earth from

space [...l This change in the way we see our planet was

officially recognized in April 1970 with the designation of the

first Earth Day, the third major event in the emergence of

modern environmentalism. The widespread recognition that

environmental problems were ultimately global, transcending

artificial nat i~na l boundaries, was both sobering and

energizing: international environmental organizations and

government agencies formed to help solve the ecological

crises of global warming, toxic waste, depletion of the ozone

layer, and destruction of rain forests. (31-32)

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Ernest Haeckel's 1870 definition, quoted earlier in this study,

contains no direct mention of humans. This absence of mention has

been interpreted to mean that humankind is something apart from

nature in the imperialist sense. But, after the environmental

revolution, scientists themselves have started interpreting Haeckel's

definition as implying that humans are integral part of, not different

from, other organisms in the ecological or environmental drama of

life. Kormondy observes that "humankind is not independent of

nature's ways ancl thus there is no substantive distinction between

human ecosysterns and natural ecosystems" (385). Such an

acceptance from the part of those who follow scientific tradition has

been the result of' the change in worldview affected by movements

of environmentalism, of counter consciousness and anti-imperialist

discourses.

The tradition generally followed by pantheists, animists, pagans,

nature-mystics and nature poets or, to a great extent,

environmentalists is designated to be the 'Arcadian.' Arcadia was a

region of ancient Greece inhabited by pastoral people of idyllic

satisfaction--a life of contentment, encompassing a reverence for

nature. Kormondy observes "in large measure this traditior?

developed as a re~c t i on to the birth and growth of industrialism and

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a protest against the mechanistic analysis espoused by French

philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) that isolated scientists

from society and its moral fabric" (384). The Arcadian has become a

very broad term and it is very difficult to say whether some because

of nostalgia favors that tradition or not. Moral, aesthetic,

ontological, political, ethnic or scientific reasons can been seen

behind the support of tradition. For example, i f once a resistance

against the destruction of a region's biodiversity--the diversity of

animals, plants ari.1 ecosystems-- was in the name of their

recreative or aesthetic values, now it may be because of its

economic or scientific values. I n 1854, American President Franklin

Pierce offered to buy a large track of Red Indian land from Chief

Seattle. Provoked and hurt, the chieftain made an anguished

appeal for the preservation of nature, underlining its value to man

and the need to safeguard it from modern civilization. At the time

of its production in 1854, Chief Seattle's letter titled "The Sacred

Earth" might have appeared to be a piece of primitive pagan's blind

worship of environm?nt or his inability or indolence to adapt with

reforms.

Taking an example from Kerala, South India, the major shift in

outlook can be made clearer. During 1978-82, there was a

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controversy in the state regarding the Silent Valley Project. The

technocrats and officials planned to destroy the Silent Valley maiden

forest to construct a dam. Poets, lovers of nature and some

environmentalists organized and propagated ideas of conservation

all over Kerala. They demanded the abolition of the Project. Those

in power were unwilling to cancel the project and the poets were

ridiculed. They were described to be marakkavikal [tree poets], as

if the poets were idiats and had marathala [tree head, that is pig-

headed]. The poets' organization "Prakruti Samrakshana Samiti"

[The Organization for Conservation] appealed before the Prime

Minister, Indira Gandhi, and the Department of Environment,

Government of India. Finally the project was dropped and the

region was declared to be "Silent Valley National Park" vide

Government of Kerala Notification No. 5462/FSA3/82/AD dated 15

November 1984. Atmaraman, a Malayalam poet and Conservation

activist, finds that the Silent Valley Movement as the

commencement of reo-ecological awareness in Kerala and literary

ecology in Malayalam (Haritaniroopanam [Green Criticism] xxiv).

The poets' appeal to preserve the Silent Valley Forest was mainly

based on ethical and aesthetic values, not on scientific or economic.

But now, as most of the nations have accepted the conservation of

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bio-diversity as a matter of policy, there are many values to cite in

favour of conserving a tropical maiden forest. The examples can be

read as a fight between modernity and Arcadian neo-ecological

awareness. I n the Seattle issue of 1854 modernity won as, at that

time, it was advancing. By the time of Silent Valley Controversy, a

new ecological awareness has been well established.

The western imperialist-cum-scientific tradition apotheosizes its

anthropocentric view by alluding to the Old Testament. The

perspective of the imperialist tradition regarding the human-nature

relationship holds that humans have dominion over nature and

derives from the following passages:

Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let

them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the

fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth, and

over air and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over

every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (Genesis.

1 : 26)

There is another passage asserting human domination:

God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply and replenish

the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of

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the sea an over the fowl of the air and over every living thing

that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28)

Eco-spiritualists and environmentalists quote certain other

sentences from the same canonized text:

Concerning the estate of the sons of man, that god might

manifest them, and that they may see themselves are

beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of me befalleth

beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth so

dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man

hath no preeminence above a beast; For all is vanity.

(Ecclesiastes 3 : 18-19)

I n the West, with the advent of deep ecology, such passages

have been retrieved and Saint Francis of Assisi is the saint of

ecology. Lynn White, analyzing the roots of Western ecological

crisis, observes that the victory of Christianity over paganism was

the greatest psychic revolution in the history of Western culture and

the implicit faith in perpetual progress is rooted in, and is

indefensible, apart rom Judeo-Christian teleology (9). Regarding

Saint Francis, Lynn White makes the following comments:

The key to an understanding of Francis is his belief in the

virtue of humility-not merely for the individual but for man

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as a species. Francis tried to depose man from his monarchy

over creation and set up a democracy of all God's creatures.

With him the ant is no longer simply a homily for the lazy,

flames a sign of the thrust of the soul toward union with

God; now they are Brother Ant and Sister Fire, praising the

Creator in their own ways as Brother Man does in his (13).

Some ecologically minded literary critics roundly condemn

Western civilization for its oppression of nature and all other forms

of the 'other.' The remarks of the British poet Ted Hughes from "The

Environmental Revolution" (Winter Pollen 128-135) are pertinent

here. Connecting the Western technological progress and "the

fundamental guiding ideas" (129) of the Western civilization, which,

according to him, "are against Conservation" (129) Ted Hughes

indicates:

They are based on the assumption that the earth is a heap of

raw materials given to man by God for his exclusive profit

and use. The creepy crawlies which infest are devils of dirt

and without a soul ... The subtly apotheosized misogyny of

Reformed Chrrstianity is proportionate to the fanatic rejection

of Nature and the result has been to exile man from Mother

Nature-froni both inner and outer nature. (129)

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Ted Hughes goes on to say that "When something abandons Nature,

or is abandoned by Nature, it has lost touch with its Creator, and is

called an evolutiona~-y dead-end," (129) and that the Western

"Civilization is an evolutionary error" (129) and the "Developer is

peering at the field through a visor, and behind him stands the

whole army of madmen's ideas, and shareholders, impatient to cash

in the world" (130). He points out that the Western man can also

see

A vision of the real Eden, 'excellent as the first day', the

draughty radiant Paradise of the animals, which is the actual

earth, in the actual universe: he may see Pan, whom

Nietzsche, firs: in the depths, mistook for Dionysus, the vital,

somewhat terrible spirit of natural life, which is new at every

second. (130)

There have been different minority or sublaltern cultures in the

West that have been friendly to ecology. Michael McDowell directs

ecological critics to admire "the best of primitive and Eastern

attitudes and recognize valuable cosmic insights that have been

overlooked in the Western civilization like those of Thoreau" (384).

Analysing Western man's craze for material gain and luxury, its

spiritual emptiness and ecological disasters as pointers of the

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limitations of the prevalent quest for progress, Ted Hughes

announces, "the time for conservation has certainly come (132).Ii

The world has to look at the sential and non-sential thing on the

basis of primordial unity. This is what the deep ecologists exhort.

Deep ecologists presume that the primitive man with his intuition

had/has an awareness to perceive the unity behind living and non-

living environment and they try to retrieve that awareness.

I n agricultural or less industrialized nations like India, the

imperialist-cum-scientific tradition has not become as much

dominant as in the West. Goddess worship, sacred-grove worship,

tree-worship and tradition bound ecologically oriented rituals are

still a living tradition. This can be contrasted with that of the West.

Lynn White in "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisisr'

indicates, "To a Christian a tree can be no more than a physical

fact. The whole concept of the sacred grove is alien to Christianity

and to the ethos of the West" (12). Anand Veeraraj's "ECG-

spirituality and the Religious Community" presents an ecological or

geographical reason for the lack of complete success for the

Westernization of India:

The Western models turned out to be sepulchral and absurd,

especially in ~rultures where religiosity emerged from human

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relatedness to nature. For such cultures in tropicai lands,

nature was more a friend than a foe. Unlike the peasants of

Europe who CO lstantly sought to insulate themselves from

the frosty weather, people of the tropical lands lived

outdoors and sought to integrate their aspirations with their

immediate environment. It was not the insulation and

escape from or the conquest of nature by humans --rather

the integration of peoples and communities with their

environment which became the ethos that nurtured the

religious sensibilities of the East ... Human experience is seen

as part of the great cosmic experience and therefore all

human-to-nature relations are sacred. Popular village cults

vividly express this cosmic awareness and believe that

nature participates fully in all the cultic rituals. The faith

community as such is not complete without the presence of

beasts and birds and the surrounding inanimate

environment. Sacred groves, temple animals, gorgeous

images representing every imaginable species and entity of

nature and shrines reflecting local myths and folklore speak

volumes about this spirituality. (51-52)

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Enumerating the (cardinal points of eco-spirituality or ecological

religiosity, Veeraraj contrasts it with the Western ego-spirituality.

"Unlike the western spirituality which shies away from all sensory

experiences, eco-spirituality is open to all senses, including outdoor

and indoor experiences as essential to its religious existence" (52).

I t calls for an understanding of the wisdom in all primal

traditions, tribal cultures and religions. It demands a subscription

to the intrinsic value of every entity in nature both sentient and

non-sentient. I t is bio-centric, not human centric in the sense that

the protection or preservation of a living thing is precious apar-r.

from its human value or whether the life saved is useful to man or

not. Western environmental ethics has come as far as allowing

room for some measure of respect for nature. It has yet t o cross

the threshold of encouraging reverence for nature, A sense of

reverence and sacredness abide where there is the recognition of

the intrinsic value of the other for its own sake (53-54).

The recognition of ecotic needs, biological or somatic or

psychological or dependence on the environmental communism with

nature is diametrically opposed to the domination and mastery over

nature. Nature's bountifulness has to be acknowledged by those

who enjoy it. The eco-spiritual attitude is clearly visible in various

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3 8

passages of the Vedas like Shanti Mantra, which implores the sky,

the earth, the rivers and the plants to be peaceful (Atharva Veda

X I - 9 ) and Bhoomi Sookta that prays to the Earth Mother, who bears

the Sacred Universal Fire to impart vitalizing and purifying forces

(Atharva Veda X I I . I ) . Commenting upon the passages like these in

the Vedas, Deena Bandhu observes:

Ecology was i3 sacred science to the Vedic men ... Earth is not

simply matter, a geological substance for exploitation and

domination. Human being is earthly and is of the earth.

Earth is the rnother who gives life. We do not own her but

she owns us. She feeds us and we live on her. She is

loving, pa t i e~~ t , nurturing and self- giving. She is the

foundation and the very basis of life. Human life has no

existence without earth. Therefore it was both matricide as

well as masochism for the Vedic men to attempt to hurt or

exploit earth. (5)

Another major contrast with the West is that apart from that of the

dominant classes, numerous regional, tribal land ethnic cultures,

which are pre-modern and primitive, exist. External and internal

colonizations have rnarginalized them. But, in the West the white

had driven out or destroyed almost all the pre-modern ethnic

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groups. So, unlike the Western scene, though rnarginalized, the

Indian tribal ethnic groups have been exercising their influence

upon the composite culture and worldview. Totemic worship or

setting apart certain plants or animals as sacred is still a legacy.

Conservation of land, river or forest is intermingled with the

solidarity and spiritual existence of certain ethnic minorities or

tribes. The following !S an example of such a tribal movement.

The Chipko movement in the Himalayan valley, Garhwal village,

which has been resisting cutting down forest trees, is a world

famous one. Sundarlal Bahuguna, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi,

has organized the villagers of Garhwal, especially women and they

cover or hug the trees with their hands, body and legs. Those who

come to fell the trees have to kill them before attempting their task.

Such non-violent resistance for saving trees has a tradition,

centuries old, in India. Bishnoys in Rajasthan used to protect their

tree, Khejari, by this method. At least from 1604, they have

adopted this. I n that year two women belonging to Rajasthan

became martyrs. Many Bishnoy sages sacrificed themselves to save

Khejari trees. Of all such 'tree-martyrdoms,' that happened in 1720

is the most famous one. Three hundred and sixty three Bishnoys,

including women and children, sacrificed themselves to save their

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sacred trees. Beheading them one by one, the officials cut down

Khejari trees. The Bishnoy-martyrs had been hugging trees to

ward-off the tree-fellers. Knowing the heroic sacrifice, the king of

Jodhpur, Abhayasing, as a part of his repentance, banned the felling

of Khejari in Jodhpur. I n 1982, a pillar was raised glorifying the

Bishnoy martyrs and their names were recorded on it. The

Bishnoys inspired the Chipko movement, Himalayan tree-hugyers,

The discussion of' the three terms, ecology, deep ecology anu

human ecology, --ecology as a body of knowledge resulting from

pure unemotional scientific enquiry regarding the inter relatedness

of biotic and abiotic environments, deep ecology as a philosophical

or spiritual world view in which the ultimate realization or value is in

the harmony or interdependence among the living and non-living

things or the preservation of diversity of life in itself a value, and

human ecology, the manipulation of ecological knowledge for

humankind only-- dtmand as conclusion the classification of values

that have cropped up during the analysis in this chapter. Edwarti

Kormondy, the renowned environmental biologist, enlists sevel-1

major values- economic, life-support, recreational, scientific,

aesthetic, life and ethical (386). Economic value is related to

considering 'nature' as a resource for human gain, for food, shelter,

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cloths, medicine, or in short, all somatic needs. Life support value

looks how life is tethered to the biosphere, to its air, water and

land. Recreational value finds in environmental a place to play,

climb, swim, walk or run which gives pleasurable appreciation and

allows for participation using nature as a milieu for intellectual

activity is the look out of scientific value. Aesthetic value of

environment searches for a vehicle for non-utilitarian searching for

organic beauty. Lif<, value is interesting to those who are curious

about the evolutionary kinship of the living. Regarding the ethical

values Kormondy remarks:

The ethical values in human-nature relationships devolve

from the tradition of imperialism [humans apart form nature]

and Arcadian~sm [humans as part of nature] and this often

lead to dilemmas and non-humans, between rights and

entitlements of individuals and of society, as well as those

choices between present and future generations. The ethics

of manipulating nature ... derives from a consideration of

whether the knowledge of how to control nature at any cost

is prized or whether human kind is regarded as one of the

species, but of no higher rank in the biosphere. (386)

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Kormondy's analysis, being in a scientific point of view, does not

mention spiritual value or, in other words, the spiritual value of T

environment is mistaken for recreational and aesthetic values. A

purely naturalistic, scientific or utilitarian or rational evolution may

not recognize the spiritual. The sense of belonging to environment

in itself is a value and it is contrasted with the sense of alienation or

rootlessness felt by m.dny in the Postnatural/urban societies. The

spiritual view is perceivable in the discussion of passages from Chief

Seattle's Letter and the Vedas.

This study requires the explication of the term 'Literary Ecology.'

It can be put in simple terms as the application of neo-ecological

ideas and ideals for interpreting literary works. There are passages

in literature, which cannot be classified either as 'ecological

literature' or 'literary ecology.' Ecological literature comprises of any

writing on ecology-scientific, artistic or spiritual. Literary ecology is

used only in the cont?xt of critical studies of literary or artistic

works. Sueellen Campbell in "The Land and Language of Desire:

Where Deep Ecology and Post-Structuralism Meet" (Glotfelty, ed.

Ecocriticism 124-136) finds the confluence of literary ecology and

ecological literature upon certain sites and the West's concern for it:

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Ecologists also see an experience of lost unity and a desire to

regain it as central to our human nature ... As Emerson wrote

in Nature 'We are much strangers in nature as we are aliens

from God. We do not understand the notes of birds ...'

Because our culture does not teach us that we are plain

citizens of the earth, because we live apart from the natural

world and derly our intimacy with it, we have lost the sense

of unity that is still possible in other cultures. Our desire

marks what we have lost and what we still hope to regain.

(134-135)

Literary ecology ~Jiscusses the environment through literature.

'Literary ecology,' 'e~ocriticism' and 'green studies' are terms, which

are used synonymously. Laurence Coupe, the editor of Green

Studies Reader, defines: "Green studies an emerging academic

movement, which seeks to ensure that nature is given as much

attention within the humanities as is currently given to gender,

class and race" (302-303) and "Ecocriticism [is] the most important

branch of green studies, which considers the relationship between

human and non-human life as represented in literary texts and

which theorises about the place of literature in the struggle against

environmental desti uction" (302). Terms like eco-aesthetics,

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environmental aesthetics and literary ecology are also used as

synonyms. Literary ecology is a broad term that encornpasses and

explores the ways that writinglliterature reflects and influences

human kind's interac~tion with the natural world. Literary ecology is

distinguished from ecology and deep ecology discussed earlier.

Literary ecology, simply put, is the study of relationship between

literature and the physical environment. Just as feminist criticism

examines language and literature from a gender/conscious

perspective and Marxist criticism brings an awareness of modes of

production and economic class to its reading texts,

ecocriticism/literary ecology takes an earth-centred approach to

literary studies. I t is the publication of The Ecocriticism Reader:

Landmarks in Literary Ecoloav [1996], an anthology of twenty-two

ecocritical studies, which popularized the term literary ecology, in

American Academic circles. The book has three parts-"Ecotheory:

Reflections on Nature and Culture," (3-146) "Ecocritical

Considerations of Fiction and Drama" (149-222) and "Critical

Studies of Environmental Literature" (225-391)-apart from Cheryll

Glotfelty's "Introduction: Literary Studies in an Age of

Environmental Crisis" (xv-xxxvii).

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I n the "Introduction," Glotfelty traces a brief history of the birth

of environmental literary studies in America:

I f your knowledge of the outside world were limited to what

you could infer from the major publications of the literary

profession, you would quickly discern that race, class,

gender were the hot topics of the late twentieth century, but

you would ne\ er suspect that the earth's life support systems

were under st:ress. (xvi)

But, the newspaper headlines have been full of environmental

issues and moverrlents from 1970s. There has been a wide

discrepancy between current events and the preoccupations of the

literary profession. While related humanities disciplines, like history,

philosophy, law, sociology and religion have been 'greening' since

1970s, literary stl~dies have apparently remained untinted by

environmental concerns. But, there have been individual studies,

which relate the environmental problems and literary works and in

the early nineties ~t grew. Harold Fromm, one of the editors of

Ecocriticism Reader, organized, in 1991, a literary conference

entitled "Ecocriticism: The Greening of Literary Studies." I n the next

year, a new Association for the Study of Literature and Environment

[ASLE] was formed I n 1993 Patrick Murphy established a new

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journal, I ~terdiscip l inarv Studies in Literature and

Environment,

To provide a forum for critical studies of the literary and

performing arts proceeding from or addressing

environmental considerations. These would include ecological

theory, environmentalism, conceptions of nature and their

depictions, the humanlnature dichotomy and related

concerns. (Glotfelty, ed. Ecocriticism xviii)

Some of the major problems posed by ecocritics when literary

texts are studied are the representation of nature, the role played

by physical setting, ecological values/wisdom expressed, metaphors

of land and their influence on the voice, vision and craft,

presentation of environmental crisis, race/class/gender-oriented

attitude to environment and the relationship between science of

ecology and literary studies.

Despite the broad scope of inquiry and disparate levels of

sophistication, all ecological criticism shares the fundamental

premise that human culture is connected to the physical world,

affecting it and is affected by it. Cheryll Glotfelty points out:

Ecocriticism takes as its subject the interconnections

between nature and culture, specifically the cultural artifacts

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of language and literature. As a critical stance, it has one

foot in literature and the other on land; as a theoretical

discourse, it negotiates between the human and the

nonhuman. (_Ecocriticism xix)

Glotfelty distinguishes ecocriticism from other critical approaches:

Literary theory, in general, examines the relations between

writers, texts, and in most literary theory 'the world' is

synonymous with society-the social sphere. Ecocriticism

expands the notion of 'the world' to include the entire

ecosphere. If we agree with Larry Commoner's first law of

ecology, 'Everything is connected with everything else,' we

must conclude that literature does not float above the

material world in some aesthetic ether, but, rather, plays a

part in an immensely complex global system, in which

energy, matter, and ideas interact. (xix)