CHAPTER V II
MAN AND NATURE
IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT
MARGARET CHATTERJEE
INTRODUCTION
It is perhaps significant that thinkers in many parts of the world are searching for a meaningful relation between man and nature at a juncture in history when, at one and the same time, we are conscious of the growth of human control over nature and yet brought up short by the frightening ways in which this very control can boomerang upon us. In part we are looking for an "alternative to the purely secular and pragmatic desire for material betterment."1 This secular and pragmatic desire in our day cuts across national boundaries. It would be foolish merely to decry it, for there can be no denying the claim of all to have their rightful place in the world order. This claim passes over into something more, a desire to have a more fair distribution, and this especially when it becomes evident that the distribution of goods and services is hardly equitable within national boundaries, let alone on an international scale.
The second consideration which encourages thinkers to re-explore the relation between man and nature comes out of a heightened sense of national identity. There is a connection between the two. The very forces which propel a people towards greater material prosperity, invite a rethinking of the specific, of what makes one people different from another.
The third consideration arises when we compare these specificities and often experience a desire to share, however imperfectly, the heritages of our neighbors. Social realities today tend to transform themselves rapidly, whether through economic changes or political shifts in the locus of power, and this rapidity often prevents a taking stock of cultural traits, of the corpus of values known to our fathers but of which we are aware only as faint echoes. Our thinking, and especially our valuations, have not kept pace with the course of events, which often are opaque to understanding. It is as if we found ourselves on an island of history and wish we could regain the shore of the mainland. The intellectual grasp of reality in our times, that is to say, is fed by a sense of economic and historical facts, but veiled by a sense of `unknowing' as to the whither of our venturing as well as, in many cases, a nostalgia about the past. This nostalgia is felt only by the seniormost among us. The young may either experience an optimism propelled by the immediate prospect of more-sense level rewards, or by contrast they may have a sense of vacuum, a sense that amidst the stream of change there is no solid shore in sight.
The nations of Asia are in the poignant position of being betwixt many worlds, wondering to what extent it may be feasible, or desirable, to combine them. We are no longer flattered by being regarded as repositories of exotica, and we view with an ironic eye the tendency in some quarters to find in Asian culture items which apparently are available in a supermarket fashion, but which are not in fact able to be grafted onto the cult of money-making or the acquisitive life in general. Chinese calligraphy, Indonesian batik work, the tea ceremony, handwoven tapestries--all belong to cultures which have characteristic concepts of time and work. The labor involved is not a means to an end, beautiful though the end may be, but valuable in itself as a discipline. This discipline mirrors in microcosmic form the travail of nature whose very order encompasses something akin to labor
This is ill understood as conflict and contradiction; it reminds us in an infinity of ways of the elaboration of interconnections which at one extreme may be manifest in volcanic eruption and at the other in the blossoming of a flower in the desert. In man as creator the very travail of nature becomes articulate. He embodies the seasons in his own process of aging; his breath mingles with the winds and his body becomes dust and ashes. It is the mystery of this articulation upon which philosophers and artists reflect and that the tiller of the field enacts with the sowing of seed and the garnering of the harvest.
PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS ON NATURE
From the foregoing it may be gathered that I see our theme in terms of cultural history and in terms of ontology, and that I see the two as closely related. For this reason I do not find the sole sources of Indian concepts of nature (for there is no single monolithic concept identifiable) in texts, but also elsewhere. However, let us look at the more explicitly philosophical side. We can detect four distinct theories:
(a) The Theory of bhutas (elements): water, earth, wind, fire and air. This provides a cosmic framework which can link up temperament, food, medicine and virtually all phenomena.
(b) The Samkhya distinction between purush (spirit) and prakriti (nature). This amounts to the most uncompromising philosophical dualism yet thought out. It has a number of peculiarities. It classifies mind along with prakriti which makes it curiously consonant with that contemporary philosophical oddity, physicalism. Prakriti is said to be a combination of sattva (luminosity), rajas (activity) and tamas (turgidity), which means that matter includes sattvik elements, and also that mind is quasi-material. While this view does not separate consciousness from nature, it involves saying that consciousness is non-sentient (since prakriti is non-sentient). However, in granting that prakriti is self-propelled and that mind is the product of this self-propelling capacity, mind is granted a certain elan which is nonetheless blind rather than illuminated or illumining.
(c) The theory of paramanus (atoms) associated with Nyaya-Vaisheshika. Being pluralist and realist this is compatible with the type of natural science to be found in Democritus and Leucippus.
(d) The Advaitin concept of mayavada which sees in the empirical, and therefore in nature, something to be transcended. Drawing a wedge between the phenomenal and the real as it does, it strives to take us beyond nature. Indeed, in the strict sense, it also takes us beyond the concept of man since it sets as a goal for the human being the shedding of those very features which make him human.
Of these four theories of nature the richest is the first, the theory of bhutas or elements, found in the Vedas. Two hymns in particular provide material on this, the Prthivi mahini (RV V, 84) and the Bhumi Sukta (AV XII, I). The former apparently refers to prthivi in the sense of earth, rather than in the modern connotation of world: "You in your sturdy strength hold fast the forests, clamping the trees all firmly to the ground." The Bhumi Sukta (AV XII, I) begins with the origin of earth from amidst the waters, showing how she bears, carries and sustains all else: "The Earth is mother; I am son of Earth (line 12). The rain-giver is my father; may he shower on us blessings"!
Earth in turn is "sustained by Heavenly Law." Particularly noteworthy is the way in which function, attribute and quality are fused together. She bears "all that has two legs, three, or four," she is the stage "where mortals sing and play," where altars are made, and therefore where Agni the fire-god resides. She is `patient', and she is "a vessel of gladness." A particularly lovely passage describes the fragrance of the earth, and how this emanates in different ways from plants, water, lotuses, animals, human beings and the gods. One has only to recall that the spouse of earth is Indra, and that the rain-giver is described as father in line 12 to appreciate the prayer made in line 23: "Instill in us abundantly that fragrance, O Mother Earth, which emanates from you." Fragrance is invisible but unmistakable; this is why, in our own century, Gandhi speaks of spirituality through the image of fragrance as the quality which others recognize. There can be no lines with a stronger ecological message than these (35):
Whatever I dig up of you, O Earth,
may you of that have quick replenishment!
O purifying One, may my thrust never
reach right into your vital points, your heart!
The place of man in the cosmos is made clear (line 53):
Heaven and Earth and the space in between
have set me in a wide expanse!
Fire, the Sun, the Waters, the Gods
have joined to give me inspiration.
Although man's place is what one of our contemporary Indian philosophers has aptly called "the realm of between," how to fulfill this destiny is beautifully exemplified through the elements themselves. Water, from which everything has its source, is betwixt the solid and the ethereal. The power of the invisible is illustrated by the wind. Wind also epitomizes power, mystery, and freedom. Who knows whence it comes or whither it goes. The mind wanders freely. "We bring him our homage, whose voice may be heard, but whose form is not seen" (RV X, 168).
Are natural phenomena then gods? Sometimes indeed they seem to be such. The mythopoeic imagination can move easily from looking on wind as the "breath of the gods" to intuiting its divinity. In so doing one is linking force, power and attribute in ways which invoke respect, indeed emulation. The stability and firmness of earth, of mountains and trees, are models for man. The grass which straightens its back after being trampled on (the image is mine) is a symbol of regeneration and courage. This recalls the way the bamboo is regarded with respect in China, personifying as it does resilience and patience. The Atharva Veda (III, 22; VI, 38) celebrates the splendors of nature which for man are objects of quest--the dignity of the elephant, the strength of the lion, and the swiftness of the waters. And when folk literature recounts the not so admirable qualities of some members of the animal kingdom, it is with the knowledge that man is, likewise, a bundle of potencies, good and bad.
CULTURAL THEMES
When we probe into how this near celebratory and certainly participatory understanding of nature developed into something more complex, the Indian cultural experience reveals many facets. The need for discipline and work continues in the idea of tapasya which at one extreme is austerity. Exuberance and austerity are embodied in one and the same figure, that of Shiva. The need for acquiring skill from those who know and the realization that this is a process which involves stages and therefore time, is contained in the concept of diksa or initiation. The agricultural cycle teaches the discipline of collaboration with nature; for example no one would attempt to plough a rockface or expect dry cattle to produce milk. Thus was born the concept of seva or service; service to the land, animals, the family, people of other families, and to the gods. Actions must be performed correctly, whether it be the ritual acts demanded upon special occasions or day-to-day duties which must be carefully executed so that the work prosper.
The Indian ethos at its best was able to discern a transcendent meaning in natural phenomena and so was able to create out of a cosmos of elements--plants, animals and gods--a world. In all this the notion of object as Gegenstand, or what stands `over against', strikes an alien note. Perhaps the ancient Indians were protected from seeing the natural as object, not by any absence of the scientific temper, but by their ability to see polarities as complementaries. Such an interpretation derives support from ancient Indian systems of medicine where the diagnostic eye is clearly guided by a sense of the need for balance between contraries, a principle which guides the most up-to-date medical practice today.
But the glimpse of transcendence in the many-colored world of nature also beckoned some souls to hunt for something further. It is this further quest, reinforced by a sense of much in life that is sorrowful and hard, that led some philosophers--of whom Sankara was probably the greatest--to coin a vocabulary which, begins with the cosmic but strives nonetheless to take flight from it. This led to a considerable impoverishment of the original many-splendored Vedic vision. If antique visions are born to fade, it is one thing for them to fade into the light of common day, and quite another for a wedge to be driven between the day-to-day and the transcendent so that the transforming of the mundane appears as an impossible task.
In all their rich variety, Indian arts were able to avoid the path taken by some philosophers of forsaking nature for the transcendent delights of infinite seduction but conceptual inaccessibility. That many a time experience exceeds our conceptual nets is a point well taken, but we turn our backs on nature at our peril. Her lessons are infinite, most of all the lesson that cultivation is done in the valleys and not in the isolation of mountain tops and caves. We shall turn to the message of Indian art a little later. But I am at this point making my own stand clear vis-a-vis what seems to be a definite strand in some Indian philosophical schools, namely, the tendency to regard nature in an instrumental way--not as a means for mundane activities, but as a springboard towards a putative state where the `natural' (especially the gamut of passions, etc., within man) shall have been transcended. Sankhya, Nyaya-Vaisesika, Advaita and Jainism all seem to me to regard nature in this light, whereas I am attempting to highlight other resources in Indian traditions which may provide more possibilities in our contemporary condition.
Unity
One of the strands in the contemporary search for a view of man and nature which does not make a rift between the two is the felt need to find a non-utilitarian element in our attitude to nature. The tendency is to assume that the peoples of Asia make more room for this than do those in the West. We need to proceed warily here for the following reason. For centuries the cultures of Asia have been based largely upon agriculture and the farmer least of all is used to regarding nature in a non-utilitarian way. The crops are for consumption, the water for drinking and irrigation; animals provide food and manure and pull the plough, and fire is for keeping warm in winter. The peasant is familiar with battling with nature and with wooing her. But because man endows his activities with multiple meaning he environs his relations with nature with celebration and ritual. He propitiates the powers that can endanger him in a calendar of symbolic practices, and he elicits the fertile potencies of natural elements by nurturing and controlling them. When he consults almanacs he does so in the belief that the planets influence tides in the affairs of men.
My point is that the utilitarian motive of all these activities need not be underrated in our appreciation of this host of symbolical actions which we may tend to view with a nostalgic eye if we live in places where most of this has been lost. We also need, I think, to avoid romanticizing what appears to us strange, rich and meaningful. The agricultural year allows for natural pauses between periods of labor in a way which is excluded in the tending of machines in industrial life. The land must lie fallow before it is ploughed again. The heavy labor of harvesting invites celebration when the work is done. The long winter nights go along with the return of sap to the root, and the gathering in of cattle to the stables. Up in the Himalayas the animals live beneath the first floor, and the very heat they generate helps to keep the living room above warm. These are the months of the year for spinning and weaving, and for story-telling.
Indian life, and Indian rural life in particular, strives to establish not only connections between man and nature but between man and the cosmos. If a textual warrant for this is sought, we can find it in the Rig Veda which invokes the natural powers of sun, wind and thunder, recognizing their potency and evidencing a host of man's mythopoeic abilities--praising, propitiating, and enlisting them in the course of mundane human activities. If Agni, the fire god, is given a primary role at the beginning of ritual acts it is in recognition of the volatility of this element, its suitability as a messenger, and the need to keep such a powerful force as a friend and not as an adversary. It is not only philosophers and poets who try to create confidence in the world;2 the daily round of actions of ordinary people are shot through with gestures which make it meaningful. I think here of the salutation of the early morning sun, the pouring of water on a tulsi plant growing in the courtyard, the sprinkling of water on the place made ready for puja (worship), the offering of the first mango of the season to the household gods. All these can be seen in terms of establishing inter-connections between human living and the world of gods and goddesses and cosmic powers, including also those powers which are intrinsically fearful--disease, the loneliness of the desert, the absence of water, the impassible mountain crag, and the places in the forest where danger lurks. The countryman well understands the polarities of darkness and light, pain and joy, failure and success. But he sees these as complementaries, finding in the rhythm of life a natural place for them all.
This use of the word `natural' needs pointing up for it means `how things are, what we must expect to be the case'. Perhaps there can be nothing which so well embodies "isness." Rural life does not inscribe a small circle as might the circumscribed mechanical movement made by the worker on the factory floor and which constitutes his whole day's work. Instead it draws an increasingly wider circle, taking in, as it does nowadays with improved agriculture, the effect of dams far away, the pollution of rivers across frontiers and the melting of glaciers high up in the mountains.
Invocation and Evocation
But in Indian life the natural, what is, includes men and animals, gods and other celestial beings and all cosmic powers. It is clear that this totality includes far more than the polarity of mind and matter, a polarity which often seems to be behind many discussions of man and nature. I have stressed the rural background of Indian resources regarding our theme, the pre-industrial setting. I stress also that nature is by no means co-extensive with the concept matter. Man participates in nature through the clay figures made for play or for worship, and in the making of floral garlands for use in the temple or to honor a guest.
The nature of folk art is particularly illuminating here. The materials used are simple--bamboo, clay, rice paste, wood and stone. But the figures, terra-cotta and wood, in no way attempt to imitate nature, for cosmic power cannot be represented. In tribal ritual it is the human act which endows the ritual object with power, but the act is at the same time an invocation for the cosmic to be situated therein--to be embodied, however temporarily, in a locus to which due honor can be made. Indian art expresses a quest not just for harmony, but for attunement with a divine principle. The principle is believed to be "the formless that is beyond form." The infinite is expressed through the bounded, but the bounded is seen to encapsulate cosmic rhythm.
Invocation and evocation, rather than the contriving of conceptual frameworks, therefore, seem to me highly significant ways in which the Indian cultural heritage eloquently exhibits its understanding of the relation between man and nature. But, as I suggested earlier, this does not drive out the utilitarian considerations which are natural to people who live in a rural setting, but provides a context of meaning for them.
The concept of environment, especially with ecological connotations, is a fairly recent one. What I refer to, however, as a key to Indian attitudes to nature refers to a rather different sense of environing, the environing of mundane activities with dimensions of meaning which are enacted in ritual and festival and told by the story-teller in myths, legends and folktales. The symbols involved are rich in their diversity. Let us take some examples. The wheel is at first sight an artifact, something which is not part of nature; in the history of technology no doubt the wheel has a crucial place. Through the chariot one can traverse space, carry goods in a bullock cart and so forth. But Indian thinkers also saw therein something more. The center of the wheel symbolizes Brahman or the Absolute, the constant still point amidst change. The wheel also means the cycle of births and deaths, the insubstantiality of the empirical self, the causal chain of momentary events bent back upon itself. The wheel is akin to the cyclicality of all natural phenomena, the seasons, birth and death. The wheel-wright is at the hub of things. The chariot of Surya, the sun god, shoots across the sky; day is followed by night. The human world participates in this cosmic drama; the potter's wheel brings forth vessels which can contain life-giving water; the villager returns home in his bullock cart at the end of the day. The bullet-train propelled by modern technology is joined, through centuries of experiment, to the first inventor of the wheel.
Play and Austerity
If invocation and evocation provide an alternative vocabulary to that of explanation, I would next suggest that lila (play) and tapasya (austerity) provide an alternative to the concept of determinism with which our modern idea of nature so often is associated. Both lila and tapasya are concerned with the origin of the cosmos and its sustenance. Ancient Indian thought does not accommodate the conception of creation as found, say, in Plato's Timaeus. Lila and tapasya throw their diverse light on how things began. Lila literally means play. As a theory about the cosmos it suggests a spilling over of the fullness of being into multiplicity in a spontaneous way, an activity which has no extraneous purpose. This is a theory which springs out of the Vedic perception of the plentitude of Being, a perception which was both metaphysical and aesthetic. The aesthetic aspect of this is seen in the exuberance of detail on the exteriors of Indian temples, an exuberance which includes living things, dancing elephants, chattering monkeys, luxuriant trees with twining creepers and, amidst all this, human activities of every possible kind. While some interpret this as what is to be left behind in quest of liberation (witness the stark interiors of cave temples), I myself doubt whether this later philosophical motif can be read into the `text' left behind by our artists--a celebratory text, to my way of thinking, which is as free of inhibition as it is of other-worldliness. At most we can, if we like, regard it as one moment in the rhythm of withdrawal and return which is so common to the culture of many peoples.
If we go to folk culture the ethos is thoroughly this-worldly, with ordinary daily use objects exhibiting the artistic impulse, and gods and goddesses, spirits and demons all thoroughly involved with day-to-day activities. Leaves and flowers are brought into daily ritual and man is realized to be very much a child of nature, but without any of the Rousseauesque sentimentality which comes into the picture whenever man-in-nature is seen as counter to something else, i.e., man vis-a-vis nature in the context of the `civilizing' context of cities. The powers by which Rousseau and Hume set great store, the desires, passions, and sentiments, in fact "the sensitive part" of human nature in Hume's phrase, are not thought much of in most Indian philosophical traditions. Their influence, however, is writ large in epic literature where the strength of ennobling sentiments is given ample recognition; surely there is a satirical intent in the portrayal of the holy man as an emaciated figure amidst teeming life in the rock sculptures of Mahabalipuram.
I mentioned tapasya as a resource concept, and one which pulls in a different direction from that of lila. In the Brahmanas the threefold universe is said to emanate from Prajapati, "Lord of offspring or creatures." Now tapasya is the inner glow produced by austerity. The Brahmanas tell us that a primeval divine being differentiated himself into name and form through tapasya. It is not too far-fetched to see these apparently contrary principles of play and austerity at work in artistic activity on a microcosmic scale. These are the principles we need to take into account in contrast to the idea of poesis or making, which in some form or other lies at the basis of the theistic concept of creation.
The theme in Indian art which perhaps most vividly embodies cosmic ideas is the Nataraja, Shiva as the Lord of the Dance. He is the dynamic center around which the forces of the cosmos move. In plastic terms the bronze image of Shiva depicts divine truth, beauty and joy. The dwarf demon crushed under his dancing feet is the demon of ignorance. Perhaps no image in the repertoire of world art more eloquently incarnates cosmic activity. The two upper hands symbolize the balance of creation and destruction. They carry a small drum at the sound of which everything began, and a tongue of flame which is the instrument of destruction at the end of a kalpa or mundane epoch of time. The lower hands bestow protection. The lifted left foot symbolizes the release of devout souls. The ring of fire surrounding the dancing god symbolizes the life-process of the universe within which the dance of the prime mover takes place ceaselessly. God alone is imperishable. But this does not mean that life is static. On the contrary, the dynamism of the entire cosmic process is made clear in the Nataraja. Shaivism, of course, has inspired other paradigms in Indian art. For example, we have the yogi figure in the rock sculptures of Mahabalipuram (illustrating the tapasya mentioned earlier), or the androgynous figures which symbolize Shiva and his consort Shakti. As far as Kashmir Saivism is concerned one has only to see the landscape of Kashmir to realize the extent to which the mythic powers of Shiva are writ large in the bubbling streams which flow from the melting snows. Here is the prototype of Shiva's abundant locks. The very geographical features of the landscape indicate the alternation of demoniac powers and benign grace, the torrents and crags of the high altitude regions and the tranquility of the valley. The latter is indeed a tranquility amidst surrounding activity--the centrality of the dancer in the dance, the centrality of the hub in the moving wheel. It is no wonder that the theme of Shiva has inspired some of the most powerful examples of Indian art.
COPARTNERSHIP OF MAN AND NATURE
Inanimate Nature and Man
In common with people of many lands the Indian people find in Mother Earth a powerful symbol. To illustrate this adequately would need a study in itself. But here again the main resources are to be found in the culture itself and not in the theoretical treatises. Some of the finest examples of South Indian metal are the elaborate censers and votive lamps made for ceremonial use or for use at home. The Vedic texts prescribe that the deepas (lamps) should have pedestals, for "Mother Earth is accustomed to all sort of sufferings, but she will not put up with the heat of lamps." Herein lies most surely man's primeval fear of fire which causes destruction. But it is fused with man's built-in respect for light and his desire to associate his ritual celebrations with homage to it. If without a pedestal, the lamps are hung from the temple ceiling by means of chains. Since they are symbols of Surya (the sun god) and Agni (fire) they are regarded as auspicious. Earth, air and light are implicitly invoked in this lesser known art form.
Village houses are made basically of mud (along with stones, wattle, etc.). The very substance of which the huts are made is also the medium used for cleaning both the walls and the floors. The place for cooking food is also made of mud, the stove being then dried in the sun. In Visva-Bharati, the University founded by Tagore, a special ritual celebrates the time of ploughing the fields and the whole day is given over to festivities.
To this day the Bharatnatyam dancer makes obeisance not only to her guru or teacher, but to the earth--in the modern context, the stage--in apology for stamping on her during the dance. This is a further cosmic reference, in addition to the actual themes of the dances themselves which so often incorporate the miming of natural objects such as the lotus flower, the creeper, the stream, the tall tree, the deer, etc.
The mimetic element in Indian dance forms is well known. The symbolic weight of each gesture needs to be `read' almost as a text is read, except that the observer is not only decoding but also, presumably, in a state of admiration and enjoyment. The gestures of dance need to be seen against the backdrop of gesture in general. The way in which gesture is of special importance in a culture where there are taboos about touch is a theme itself. I have already mentioned salutation of the sun (this is done with the same gesture of folded hands which serves for greeting friends) and the watering of plants. The latter is described in a beautiful passage in Kalidasa's Shakuntala where it is said of the heroine that she would not quench her thirst until the trees had been watered. Act 4 of the drama moreover parallels the loving gestures of the child of nature, Shakuntala, with responses on the part of nature when the time comes for her to leave her friends in the grove. The passage runs as follows: "The deer let fall the morsels of darbha-grass, the peacocks stop their dancing and the creepers, whose pale leaves fall (to the ground), appear to shed tears." The passage recalls the response of the natural world to the music of Orpheus. This example of mutuality of gestures is not a pathetic fallacy, but evidence of a community of feeling which extends beyond the human world. In Vedic times the hermitage was a place of retreat; however, there was never a breach of the close relation which man has to trees, plants and animals, and it was invariably these that were a source of consolation in times of banishment and exile.
Early Vedic literature also draws the inanimate world into the world of meaningful connections. Figures carved from the rock, and caves which house shrines, partake of the substantiality, the thatness, of the inanimate, and at the same time are enlivened by the sculptor's skill and the pilgrim's devotion. Soil, rockface and mountain are indispensable dramatic personae and are often seen as the embodiment of values. The parched soil in summer is an image of the long suffering heart, and the mountain personifies immovability in a good sense, that is, sthirbhava. The running streams symbolize both flux and continuity. Lotus ponds and lakes, so often featured in Indian paintings, are the abode of Lakshmi and evoke peace and tranquillity. They are shown frequented by flamingoes, cranes and swans and in this way a single painting connects so-called inanimate nature, the animal world, and the realm of gods and goddesses. Indian painting and music, moreover, show how the concept of nature includes both the weather, seasons, and times of day. The very jungle, which at times in its density and darkness is fearsome, is a potent example of inter-dependence where each part supports the rest, animal and plant life forming a dynamic whole. Indian culture does not show the sensitivity of the Far East towards the beauty of rocks, or the subtle appreciation of the tactile qualities of jade, but the importance attached to mountains must not be missed. One of Krishna's exploits is the lifting of a mountain. The Himalayas are the dwelling place of the gods and the birthplace of holy rivers. The notion that mountains possess merits provides a most interesting counter theme to the assumption that nature and value are ipso facto opposed.
Animate Nature and Man
That the animal kingdom exemplifies merit comes in sharp contrast to thinking which includes concepts such as `brute', `beast', `the animal in us' and the like. Myth and folklore abound in stories of the merits of the elephant--nobility, grace and fidelity. Even where admission of fault is mentioned, this is balanced by the recognition of good qualities. The folklore concerning monkeys, jackals and foxes shows them as being very like us in their combination of qualities, often possessing merits which we lack. It is the animal kingdom which provides paradigms in Vatsyayan's Kamasutra.
In an agricultural setting the animal world is not distant from the human. In rural life the horse, cow and buffalo are part of the family. In the city animals are drawn into the family circle only through the institution of pets, an extreme form of domestication where animals of necessity lose their spontaneity. The importance of animal life in India's understanding of nature is nowhere illustrated so well as in sculpture and architecture. The impression that the observer has is one of teeming life and movement. While human figures, trees and mountains can give an impression of stillness and tranquillity, this is certainly not the case with animals. This is why temple friezes abound in dancing elephants, and monkeys leaping from branch to branch. In paintings the tranquillity of lotuses and swans on lakes is balanced by frolicking deer, flitting birds and bees flying from flower to flower. Life is seen as movement and as delight. But all this also goes along with a focus on human activities. This focus is probably more central in Indian painting than it is in Chinese landscape (I speak under correction here) where cloud, cataract and mountain hold our attention more than the tiny figures below. One could illustrate the stress on the human element by noting how celestial figures are endowed with multiple arms rather than wings. To go into this, however, would take us into the comparative history of art.
Nature, Man and Divinity
John Passmore suggests that to divinize nature is to underestimate its fragility.3 This argument would hold only if divinity is identified with omnipotence, but this is not the case if we consider the deities of the Indian pantheon. The fragility of nature is well understood by peoples familiar with the overflowing of river banks, whether of the Ganga or the Yangtze. Crops face a myriad of hazards and the animal world is no less open to suffering than is man. But is nature divinized in the Indian cultural framework? It is not easy to answer this question, cast as it is in a mould which may not be fully congruent with Indian thinking. Yet we must use common terms, however comparative our discourses may be. Let me put it this way. Taking the diverse data referred to so far, a picture gradually emerges of a way of thinking, and more importantly a way of life, where there is neither a sharp divide between man and nature, not between nature and the gods. To say this probably needs to be distinguished from `divinizing' nature simpliciter. Indian thinking somehow manages to steer clear both of the `object' in all its Latinized and clearly sculpted particularity, and of assuming that nature is for the most part in tune with human feelings and aspirations.
There is a sense in which nature abides, while men and other creatures do not. The Himalayas are a powerful symbol of this abidingness. To say that the Himalayas are the abode of the gods is not to say they are gods themselves. Characteristically gods and goddesses are seen as mobile. They descend from the mountains, enter into human houses (Lakshmi), and are associated with favorite trees and flowers. But they are to a certain extent both domesticated and yet set free from man and nature. Such a view, it seems to me, is phenomenologically distinguishable from the one which locates divinities in specific places and which is usually the basis for the concept of `divinization of nature'. My purpose however is not so much to press this point as to suggest, vis-a-vis Passmore's remark, that the Indian worldview is very conscious of the fragility of nature, for fragility and strength are not incompatible. Of course this does not stand in the way of either nature's fecundity or its destructiveness.
The very manner in which forms proliferate and constantly are undergoing transmutation familiarizes the man in the field (as against the city `man in the street') with "the place of man in the cosmos." He inherits a world and a cosmos rich in divine beings and natural powers, powers of which he is the guardian. Herein lies an intimation of something which goes beyond the idea of `environment', for man embodies those `environing' powers in microcosmic form within himself. His body is made of the elements; he is subject to change and decay; his moods mirror the times of day and the seasons of the year; he shares the angers and aspirations of the gods. At its best such a world view can affirm both the dignity of man and the dignity of nature. It still needs reinforcing by a sense of the indispensable link between man and society, and a sense of history. But the basic backdrop remains, an indissoluble co-partnership between man and the elements which nurture him, a co-partnership built into the ancient concept of rta (cosmic order), and a pervasive creativity for which both man and the cosmos consisting of all living things provide mutually reinforcing paradigms.
Indian Institute of Advanced Studies
Rashtrapati Nivas, Simla, India
NOTES
1. Richard Lanney, The Speaking Tree, A Study of Indian Culture and Society (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1979; first edition 1971), Preface, p. xxiii.
2. Cf. Wallace Stevens's essay, "A Collect of Philosophy."
3. "Attitudes to Nature" in Nature and Conduct, ed. by R.S. Peters (London: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, 1973-1974), vol. VIII.