dharmic ecology

Millions go to Mecca and Jerusalem every year, and you don’t see any pollution left everywhere in mountain heaps at all. But as soon as you go to Hindu religious sacred sites, suddenly, even among the sacred mountains its mountains of pollution everywhere. This is something several Hindu environmentalists have tried to raise, like in [...]

Anyone who has seen the classic Vampire Diaries series will recognise the talented Ian Somerhalder, who starred as Damon Salvatore, a chief vampire with a whole history of cruel violence and madness going back over a 100 years from where the story starts. So it’s probably natural he’s now hanging around with a Hindu pagan [...]

Today the world faces existential threat from two sides: global conflict and ecological collapse. We are heading into double extinctions, of culture and nature. These twin interlocking violations are centuries long processes with a common history of settler-colonialism, neo-colonialism and industrial capitalism[i]. Settler colonialism is, as Patrick Wolfe (2006) stated, a “logic of elimination”. It [...]

“Change in social and religious values are now posing a danger to the sacred forests,” says Prof. C.G. Kushalappa Erosion in people’s beliefs in nature worship, religion and social values are posing a threat to the sacred forests–devara kadu–that are conserved patches of forests that lay undisturbed, according to experts. “Religion played a very important role [...]

For the Hindus the Earth is sacred as the very manifestation of the Divine Mother. She is Bhumi Devi, the Earth Goddess. One of the reasons that Hindus honor cows is that the cow represents the energies and qualities of the Earth, selfless caring, sharing and the providing of nourishment to all. Hindu prayers are [...]

It's time for the people to stand up and let the politicians and big business know that we will not let our heritage, religious beliefs and environment be trampled over like this. This episode is in stark contrast to the morals and symbolism provided by the Ramayana which tells the story of how divinity, humanity [...]