Hin­dus have al­ways shown great rev­er­ence for na­ture. Their places of pil­grim­age are sit­u­at­ed deep in the hills and moun­tains, along­side rivers, lakes or near the sea. They pray to the sun, the moon and the plan­ets. Hin­dus be­lieve that the Nav­grah (nine plan­ets) hold sway over the des­tinies of in­di­vid­u­als, com­mu­ni­ties and na­tions.

This philo­soph­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al frame­work which in­forms our in­ter­ac­tion with “Dhar­ti Maa­ta” or Prithvi Maa­ta” (Moth­er Earth) goes be­yond re­spect for the en­vi­ron­ment; it speaks to our one­ness with our plan­et and with the uni­verse and our rev­er­ence for the an­i­mals, plants, rivers and oceans that make up our ma­te­r­i­al world.

What may seem just a nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non to most peo­ple is the will of God for Hin­dus. Good or scanty rain­fall, floods and drought, storms and hur­ri­canes are nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na. How­ev­er, Hin­dus see God In­dra con­trol­ling these to their ben­e­fit or detri­ment. For the mod­ern sci­en­tist, the sun is just a source of light, heat or en­er­gy. But for the Hin­dus, the sun is a God – Surya. The moon is a God – Chan­dra­ma.

Lord Gane­sha, who bless­es all our un­der­tak­ings and who we pray to at the start of our pu­jas, is rep­re­sent­ed with the head of an ele­phant. His ele­phant head is sym­bol­ic of gyan (wis­dom).

From an­cient times, the ele­phants were the path­mak­ers in the jun­gle and Lord Gane­sha paves the way for us to move for­ward in life. His two tusks (one of which is bro­ken), his bel­ly, his trunk, among oth­er sa­cred el­e­ments com­pris­ing his body, all rep­re­sent as­pects of our day-to-day ex­is­tence and our re­la­tion­ship with the nat­ur­al world.

Moth­er Lak­sh­mi, who is the cen­tral man­i­fes­ta­tion of di­vin­i­ty wor­shipped dur­ing the pe­ri­od of Di­vali, is of­ten por­trayed stand­ing or seat­ed on the lo­tus flower, which is float­ing on a stag­nant pond. Here, the lo­tus is as­so­ci­at­ed with the sym­bol­ic pu­ri­ty of the body, mind and soul, which re­mains un­spoilt by the neg­a­tiv­i­ty of the stag­nant pond on which it sits.

Those who are fa­mil­iar with Hin­duism and epic Ra­mayana know the de­ity Lord Hanu­man. He rep­re­sents pure de­vo­tion and the ab­sence of ego. He has been fre­quent­ly re­ferred to in the West as the ‘mon­key God,’ which is a very lim­it­ed and my­opic con­cep­tion.

Lord Kr­ish­na, the eighth ‘avatar’ in­car­na­tion of Lord Vish­nu, in his role as cow herder, as told in the Ma­hab­hara­ta and the Bha­ga­va­ta Pu­rana, fur­ther em­pha­sis­es the cos­mic re­la­tion­ship be­tween na­ture and the di­vine. This har­mo­ny be­tween God and na­ture is seen re­peat­ed­ly in the Hin­du tra­di­tion and shapes our eco­log­i­cal per­spec­tive.

As ear­ly as the time of the Rig-Ve­da (one of the Hin­du scrip­tures), the heal­ing prop­er­ties of plants were an in­te­gral part of wor­ship. This or­gan­ic re­la­tion­ship be­tween God and na­ture is man­i­fest in the Rig-Ve­da through as­pects of na­ture rep­re­sent­ed by Ag­ni (God of Fire), Usha (God­dess of Dawn), Varuna, who pre­sides over the wa­ters, and In­dra, who con­trols light­ning, thun­der, storms, rain and rivers. Con­ser­va­tion and preser­va­tion of na­ture have al­ways been part of our re­la­tion­ship with our nat­ur­al world.

The Hin­du doc­trine of Ahim­sa (non-vi­o­lence) against an­i­mals and hu­mans alike high­lights the strong em­pha­sis placed on the no­tion that God’s grace can be re­ceived by not killing his crea­tures or harm­ing his cre­ations. Hin­dus draw on their re­li­gious epics, such as the Vedas and Pu­ranas, for in­spi­ra­tion in their re­la­tion­ship with their en­vi­ron­ment. There is this har­mo­nious re­la­tion­ship be­tween hu­man be­ings and na­ture.

For Hin­dus, rivers are sym­bol­ic but are al­so part of our lived tra­di­tion of rev­er­ence for na­ture. Most of the rivers of In­dia are con­sid­ered to be fe­male and the moun­tains male. Rivers are per­ceived to be nur­tur­ing moth­ers which feed and nour­ish mankind. Our Hin­du an­ces­tors did not on­ly val­ue the func­tion of trees, but al­so their re­li­gious and mytho­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance. In this light, the cut­ting of trees and de­struc­tion of flow­ers is con­sid­ered sin­ful.

The ‘Bish­noi’ tra­di­tion start­ed around 1485 in the north­ern states of In­dia, la­belled as the eco-re­li­gious rev­o­lu­tion. In this tra­di­tion, bio­di­ver­si­ty and the pro­tec­tion of trees are of para­mount im­por­tance.

One of our most an­cient and sa­cred mantras, the ‘Shan­ti Paath’ (mantra of peace), sum­maris­es this or­gan­ic link be­tween prac­tice and phi­los­o­phy in Hin­duism. It is one of the many prayers in our tra­di­tion which con­nects the Di­vine Be­ing with devo­tees and their en­vi­ron­ment.

This mantra has even greater res­o­nance in our present age of en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, as well as the degra­da­tion of the hu­man spir­it.