Ecology in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

This essay will explore India as sacred place within the Mahabharata narrative, and also examine its indwelling, panentheistic theological vision as expressed in the Bhagavad Gita. The Mahabharata has been told and retold many times through many different media. The Bhagavad Gita has been translated hundreds of times into scores of languages. These texts carry stories at the core and kernel of Indian civilization, coding life paths and psychologies even far beyond India to Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and beyond. The ecological insights of this literature provide roadmaps for understanding the geography of the Indian psyche, explaining what Carl Jung would refer to as the shadow. Its parables in regard to land, city, and people can perhaps provide some guidance to our current state of ecological peril, wherein people struggle with finding their place not only in the realm of nature and the cosmos but also within their own bodies