Nature as Non-terrestrial: Sacred

Natural Landscapes and Place in Indian

Vedic and Purāṇic Thought
Meera Baindur
National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISC campus, Bangalore, 560012,
India; [email protected]

A complex process of place-making by Vedic and Purāṇic primary

narratives and localized oral secondary narratives shows how
nature in India is perceived from a deeply humanized worldview.
Some form of cosmic descent from other place-worlds or lokas are
used to account for the sacredness of a landscape in the primary
narrative called stala purāṇa, while secondary narratives, called
stala māhāṭmya, recount the human experience of the sacred. I
suggest that sacred geography is not geography of “terrestrial”
but of implaced otherworldly materials––rivers, mountains or
forests. An ecological ethics based on sacred geography must
therefore take into account the sacred aspects of such narratives
and encourage normative values that could apply to both the
sacred and the ecological for such places.

1. The Stories of the Land

To the south of the Indian subcontinent is a hill called “maruda malai” or
medicine hill. Rare medicinal herbs are found on this mountain near Coimbatore
in South India which is worshipped as a sacred geographical feature.1 The story
of how the scared hill came to be located in that region is connected to an
incident that is narrated in the epic poem Rāmāyana, the story of the divine
hero Rām.
During the final battle described in this epic that is said to have happened
in Lanka (Sri Lanka), Lakṣman, the ideal brother of the divine hero, Rām, was
lying on the ground senseless bound by the magical bonds of the sarpāstra (a
mythical snake weapon). The only cure was a divine herb, Sanjīvinī, found
beyond the Himalayas. Hanuman, the mighty vānarā (monkey warrior), flew

1. The name is in Tamil, the local language. For details of this story see R. K. Das
(1964, 6).

Environmental Philosophy 6 (2), 43–58.

Copyright © 2009 by The International Association for Environmental Philosophy.
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.
44 Meera Baindur

north to the Himalayas to find the herb. Arriving at the mythical mountain (also
called Sanjīvinī), he found that all herbs on the hillside were alike, and he could
not identify the right herb. So, he picked up the whole mountain in his mighty
hands and flew down south towards Lanka. On the way, a piece of this hill fell
down in the South of India; the sacred hill called “maruda malai” is said to be
that very piece. According to the story, the expert physician in Lanka identified
the herb and revived the ailing warrior.2
A traditional belief system of reverence for landscape features, referred
to as sacred geography in popular literature, is common to most cultures in
the Indian subcontinent. Recent writing in environmental ethics suggests that
the notion of sacred geography or reverence for nature could possibly create
a context for conservation. Some writers also suggest that forms of mythic-
ritual sacralization or reverence of geographical features could translate
into ecologically supportive behavior by the people. With reference to the
beliefs about sacred features, we find that each of these sacred places has a
rich narrative tradition, either oral or written, that describes in detail the story
of sacred origin of these places. Serving as both markers of events and as
metaphors for everyday life, the stories called “purāṇa” or history form an
important component of the philosophical presuppositions about the concept
of nature.
The conceptualization of nature within the Indian worldview is constructed
to a great extent by mythical and cultural narratives as well as rituals. The
idea of a non-human nature does not make sense to the Indian people at
large because almost all of nature is still perceived from a deeply humanized
perspective given by worldview that encompasses not just earthly but a larger
cosmic reality. People speak of and interpret realities not as they are, but as
they occur or as they are meant to occur within these world views.
It cannot be denied that these ideas continue to influence the present-day
narratives of social and environmental concerns in India. In fact we find that
the religious and cultural associations created by such narratives often have
more popular impact than the tangible values of resource or the discourses of
environmental conservation. Alley (2000) writes, “Symbolic representations
of space in Hindu sacred texts and ancient concepts associated with them call
for an approach to ecological understanding that moves beyond the secular
notions of the ‘environment’” (298).
“Natural sacred places” consisting of geographical features are revered
and are almost always associated with oral narratives about the location called
stalā purāṇas.3 The shared meanings and communicated oral histories of

2. In the spirit of ecological awareness, Hanuman takes the mountain back to where
it was!
3. In Sanskrit, stalā means “place,” purānā means “history” or “ancient stories,” so the
word would mean “ancient story of a place.” These, however, have been documented
and published into books in recent times.
 Nature as Non-Terrestrial 45

natural-scapes draw back to the deep connection of nature with the concept of
earth or land (bhūmi). These oral histories therefore are not only embodied in
architectures of the human being, but also include natural elements and natural
objects, especially water, rocks, and trees, which form features such as rivers,
lakes, mountains and forests. These locations are not universal places or generic
features such as sacred groves or river confluences, but are particulars (specific
to their cartographic positions). The particular and unique nature of each
feature is given by mythical imaginations of journeys, events, and creation and
often requires performances of many ritual practices that may be religious or
social in nature and reinforce the narratives again and again. The myths answer
the question why the place is sacred and often include a name that is based on
the theme of the myth. In such narratives, divine and superhuman events are
claimed to have happened in a particular place and are recollected by a set of
oral stories or mythical histories. Eliade (1959) refers to the power of such
myths to create what he calls “an apodictic truth.” The myths create a reality
by revealing a sacred history: “It is the sacred that is preeminently the real”
(95). People who encounter the tangibles elements of such natural landscapes
do not see them as sterile nature or mundane phenomenon but perceive them as
sacred locations and experience the sanctity of contact with the place. Chapple
(2000), for instance, writes: “It must be noted, however, that many pilgrimage
places within India, from the Himalayas in the north to Kanya kumari at the
very southern tip of the subcontinent, form a patchwork of sacralized spaces
that could be newly interpreted through the prism of environmentalism” (33)
What I derive from this reading of Eliade is the converse idea that perhaps a
natural spot that is not construed with a myth or sacred history is mundane.
This has some implications for environmental ethics that I will discuss at the
end of the essay.

2. The Idea of Place

To examine the idea of the sacred natural landscapes in India, the concept of
“place” as described by Edward Casey and others is useful. While the notion
of “space” represents a three-dimensional, measurable extension of elements
grouped together, at a more experiential level, place itself would include the
character of the space, which one can loosely term as the social and culturally
defined space. According to Casey (1993), the power of a place is not merely
determined by its location on a map but includes the relationships of the
elements within it. He writes: “The power of a place such as a mere room
possesses not only where I am in the limited sense of cartographic location
but how I am together with others (i.e. how I comingle and communicate
with them) and even who we shall become together.” This idea of place
certainly allows for the rich connection between a habitat and its occupant
more descriptively and completely. Due to the importance given to the
human interpretation of interaction with the natural areas within the Indian
subcontinent, one has to examine the particular nature of “implacement.” Casey
46 Meera Baindur

reiterates that “implacement is as social as it is personal” (23). We find that on

one hand, the notion of the sacred is personal and cultural in Indian thought,
people often visiting the sacred places for their own spiritual or personal
benefit. Each pilgrim to a sacred place will benefit individually according to
his or her actions. On the other hand, the social and cultural beliefs about the
sacredness that guide these visits are oral narratives that are socially shared,
enumerating in a general manner the kind of spiritual benefits that one could
obtain.4 As a phenomenon of experience, the feature itself is natural, an area on
the geographical landscape.
In Sanskrit, the idea of place has two equivalents. The first term “stalā” is
often used to indicate place as an area on the ground. The word “stāna,” which
is more like the word “spot/place,” refers to a designated location and is a term
that also performs an indexical function.
The narratives and stories that surround the natural can only be understood
with a concept that connects the idea of the sacred and the natural, a concept
that intimately connects a human being with her environment. Unlike the word
“place” that can be used to designate place-order, the use of the Sanskrit term
stalā is free of a mere indexical function. Stalā in Sanskrit refers to a section
of the earth that is distinctly marked out from the rest of the landscape as
being special.5 The term for land, talā, is essential to formation and meaning
of this word. This eliminates for us the possibility of having to include places
otherwise not found on earth, such as the sky or clouds. The places in the
heavens (swarga) are never called stalā in the mythology. They are sometimes
called stāna, such as “Indra-stāna.” Distinguished from the other word stāna,
referring to the ordained location or where things stand or can be spotted,
stalā is terrestrial and culturally shared. For example, in the tīrtha yatra parva
of the Mahabharata, a sage describes the holy places to be visited and the
merits gained by the pilgrims: “[T]ato gaccheta dharmajña Viśnor sthānam
anuttamam”6 (83:10; emphasis mine). For instance, the sacred landscapes are
often sacred places referred to as tīrtha stalā. The designated location of a city/
temple or the location in some area is designated by a different word, stāna.
I argue that the word “place” therefore is closer to the word stalā, especially
when it refers to a landscape or, more accurately, a land-place.7 Besides, we
find that stalā is invariably linked to the material boundaries of a landscape

4. For example the general benefit of a ritual bath in the Ganga river is to wash away
one’s sins; the personal benefit could be that a person experiences a divine vision of a
deity as he desires.
5. Stalā is derived from “stha,” meaning “section, chapter or marked part,” and “talā,”
which means “surface.” The correct translation which I will use henceforth is “land-
place.”
6. “Then, [one should] go to the most exalted place of Viśnu [where he is established],
O knower of righteousness. . . .” (trans. Kisari Mohan Ganguli, 1883–1896).
7. The word “landscape,” devoid of its historical antecedents in the West, would be the
ideal translation as it too includes within it the word “land.”
 Nature as Non-Terrestrial 47

feature such as a rock, a river, or a forest. The boundaries of a place are as

amorphous as the landscape they designate. Casey (1993) points out the
difficulty in the distinction between place and landscape: “A landscape seems
to exceed the usual parameters of place by continuing without apparent end;
nothing contains it, while it contains everything, including discreet places, in
its environing embrace” (25). The same holds true somewhat for the category
stalā. But the discreteness of stalā for human recognition, however, is given by
the material content of the feature––such as the water of the Ganga river, the red
soil of a particular region or the extent of a rock surface. Though most sacred
places involve some form of a water body, the category stalā includes the area
in general along with the banks and the land surface. Where discreteness of a
boundary is lacking, the sacred place is marked by human architecture, such
as steps on the river bank or a shrine, which indicate the horizon or boundary
of the sacred place or simply serve as a marker. Tanaka (1988) specifies that
sacred sites such as these comprise natural and human-made assemblages of
sacred symbols and landscape markers invested with special meaning (Gesler
and Pierce 2000, 222). It is clear that it is the natural feature itself that is sacred
and not just the shrine. As mentioned earlier, the word stalā seems to be closer
to the idea of a natural feature because of its inclusive category of land surface
and so is the carrier of the created sacred reality. As we have seen in the earlier
story the “hill” or “malai” is the natural meaning, and so is the word “maruda,”
which refers to the profusion of medicinal herbs on the hill. The origin of the
hill and its divinity is explained by a narrative. There is a certain worldview
of mythical history associated with these geographical places––a narrative of
being sacred by creation, rather than being made sacred.
In a conceptual analysis of sacred geography, while examining the ideas
and practices that surround the concept of the sacredness of land-place, two
components of the experiences of people can be identified; firstly, the mythic
imagination that relates to the sacred origin of the land-place and secondly,
the ritual practices that are prescribed in such places. The oral narratives that
record the sacred origins of the place or tīrtha are often called stalā purāṇā
(story of the place). What is unique to these stories is that, along with the
meaning ascribed to natural objects or elements of the environment, each place
is connected with a story that is rich in metaphor and includes the location and
its natural elements within its narrative along with people and divine beings.
Sacred stalā narratives have two themes, the first being a description of the
descent of the divine upon the terrestrial, or “earthed divine,” and the second
theme that describes what human experience of this divine on earth, or “deified
earth,” would be. The secondary narratives, the stalā māhātmya, describe the
positive interactions of people who have benefited from the presence of the
sacred or have been punished for disrespecting the location. These secondary
narratives are often referred to as stāna māhātmya too, especially if there
is a temple or a shrine. For example, in the famous shrine of Somnatha, the
oral stalā purāṇā recollects the manifestation of a self-formed Liṇga, or a
48 Meera Baindur

representation of Śiva at a river confluence.8 The purāṇā tells the story of the
moon-god, Soma, who by being partial to one wife among twenty-seven sisters
annoyed his father-in-law. Cursed to be consumptive, the moon was unable
to perform his duties. To restore his brightness, he was asked to bathe at the
confluence of Sarasvati. The Skanda purāṇā states that the Sarasvati originates
from the water pot of  Brahma  in the heavens and flows from plakṣa  on the
Himalayas. The myth speaks of how by bathing at the confluence of the rivers,
he regained his splendor and had a vision of Śiva as a self-formed effulgent
Jyothir–Liṇga (a Liṇga made of light). The “Prabhasa tīrtha” is named after
the regained effulgence of the moon. Both the non-earthly entities, appearance
of the Jyothir–Liṇga and the descent of the celestial moon into the waters
further sanctified the holy place. The stalā māhātmy recollects the association
of Kriśna with this place. Also popular is the story of King Mularaja of the
Chaulukya dynasty who built a great shrine at this place after a dream about
the Moon-god. Thus the two forms of narrative co-exist, informing the pilgrim
that her experience of the place is sacred and otherworldly at the holy place.
To quote Flood (1993): “Mythical worlds are mapped to specific geographies
of a holy place; the physical world is imbued with mythological or religious
meaning” (2–3).

3. The Sacred
A brief note on some perspectives of the idea of the sacred in Indian thought
would provide a background to the idea of sacred land-places in India.
In objects of the practice of sacred nature worship or reverence, we must
distinguish between natural objects and natural landscapes. Certain objects,
plants, animals and features are regarded as sacred categories––such as the
tulsi plant (Ocymum sanctum), the holy fig tree (Ficus religiosa), or eastward
flowing river channels––but these are classes, some sort of sacred universals.
They are not bound by location, but are sacred wherever they occur.
Another way to distinguish the idea of the sacred is by considering the
modes in which the divine is invoked in an object. Keith (1925) points out
that there is difficultly in distinguishing between the divinity accorded to the
sacred by being imbued with the holy or sacred essence and the object itself
being divine, a reverence paid to the sacred as a sign (66). This difference is
not confined to the natural but also to human-made objects. For example, the
various ritual objects such as the wheel refer to the sun and gold or sometimes
represent the god Agni (66–67). Yet again, the stones with spiral markings–the
saligrāmā–are considered divine forms of Viśnu.
Some spaces or areas on the ground are “originally sacred,” while others
are sanctified by rituals of human beings or actions of the divine beings. For

8. For a detailed mythical history and the story of this shrine which is condensed here,
see Romila Thapar, “The Setting,” chapter 2 in Somanatha: The Many Voices of History
(2004, 18-37).
 Nature as Non-Terrestrial 49

example, before building any structure, the land is consecrated and worshiped
with the ritual of Bhūmi- pūja or land worship. There are rituals where land
areas are temporarily sanctified for a yajňa (vedic ritual) or a pūja (worship).
On the other hand, the idea of sacred natural locations occurs by narratives that
claim sacredness for the land-place by some sort of non-terrestrial “origin.”
Land-place features are, however, very specific, particular examples of sacred
events that have occurred in an ancient time and space. With respect to natural
elements, it seems that both kinds of sacred narratives exist. There are areas
and sacred places that are originally sacred and some that are made sacred by
connection with the divine after they have been created. On the other hand,
we find that the narratives of places sanctified by contact with the divine are
not unique to Indian thought alone, and also that this idea of divine contact is
not restricted to natural landscapes but includes human made objects or even
relics.
While the rituals of purity or actions of the divine gods create sacred spaces,
geographically sacred regions are implanted onto the earth. These regions seem
to have sacredness as an essential component. The sacredness imbued in the
landscape features––rocks, mountains, or rivers––does not disappear after the
human or divine interaction is complete. The sacred spaces are created by ritual
acts and may later turn mundane while sacred places remain sacred, regardless
of time and changes. Within the belief system of purāṇas, the defilement
of a sacred geographical feature is not possible, making the environmental
efforts around these natural features a difficult task. We therefore need to
understand what makes people believe that these sacred regions are incapable
of being polluted. The idea of physical pollution seems to be less significant
to pilgrims than the experience of the divine on earth. The narratives about
the origin of these places play a very important role in establishing the non-
degradability of the physical feature. These narratives often defeat the efforts
of the environmentalists to create ecological awareness.9

4. Sacred Imaginations––Myths
Most myths about sacred places are narratives about the transplantation or
sudden appearance of that sacred feature on the earth. These narratives or
stories are like mini-creation myths and discuss the divine origins of the sacred
land-place. As in the case of the maruda malai or the sacred medicine hill, it
is clear that the sacredness is connected to the origin of the event that caused
the hill to be or occur. Accordingly, in the story of the medicine hill, it actually
dropped from the sky onto the earth. The unique creation of land-places in these
mythological narratives strongly support a hypothesis that divine origination

9. See Alley (2000, 322). The difference between the idea of dirt and pollution is dis-
cussed a bit later in this paper.
50 Meera Baindur

alone imparts eternal sacredness to a land-place. The purpose of the narrative is

to locate the place culturally as non-terrestrial (non-earthly) and give it a higher
value than that of the surrounding areas. These narratives form a part of the
tradition of stories called purāṇas. The descriptions of nature-scapes and the
relationship between the human and nature in the Vedas and the Purāṇas, some
of India’s earliest philosophical and religious literature, are to be understood
within a broader framework of some fundamental conceptions of the people
who created these narratives and their larger cosmic views.
The first of these preconceptions that I discuss here is that of the idea
of nature itself. The contemporary, popular meaning of nature refers to that
which is non-human. Yet, it is clear that the idea of a “non-human nature”
is largely absent in these stories and narratives. Perception of nature is
anthropocentric; much of the manifested world is explained and understood
through the experiences of the human being. Human beings are not placed
above all other natural elements in the world but are situated in the cosmic
system, interrelated to both beings and geographies. Bilimoria (1997) stresses
the cosmic application of moral values across all beings:

The normative values were not restricted for human well-being alone, rather
they were universalized for all sentient beings and inanimate sectors as well
as spirit spheres, i.e. gods and the faithfully departed; the biosphere, i.e.
animals and plants; and the broader biotic universe, i.e. inanimate realms
comprising the elements, stones, rocks, earth-soil, mountains, waters, sky,
the sun, planets, stars, and the galaxies to the edges of the universe (this and
other possible ones). (2)

The classificatory scheme in Hindu cosmology is based on a cosmic system

of place-worlds that are called lokas. Each loka is an inhabited world with its
own description having within it unique features, denizens, places, myths and
also creation myths. The earth itself, as the terrestrial surface that humans and
other earth beings occupy, is not seen as a single isolated place but exists as
part of a hierarchical cosmic system of different lokas or worlds. In the vedas
there are two clear forms of reference to the earth. One is the earthly plane, the
metaphysical realm of bhūloka which is a part of either a seven-world system,
(saptaloka10), or sometimes a three-world system––Bhū (earthly plane),
Bhūvah (intermediate plane), and Suvah (heavenly plane). We find the word
“tala” used to describe the different surfaces of these worlds: rasātala, for
instance, means “water surface.” The earth surface, being stable, is called stalā
as mentioned earlier,11 the word is prefixed with “sta.” The earth’s surface is
therefore a kind of tala, a surface that refers to its potential for having sections.

10.  Bhū, Bhūva, Suva, Jana, maha, tapa, and satya are the seven worlds mentioned in
the longer versions of the popular Gayathrimantra chants.
11.  Please see footnote #5 on page 46 of this article.
 Nature as Non-Terrestrial 51

The worship of objects that are natural, including landscape features,

can be celestial, ethereal or terrestrial. As the realm, the earth had no
sacred personification. It was for all purposes a meta-physical territory. It is
interesting to note that these metaphysical and experiential components, like
the nature gods in the Vedas, are amorphous, lending themselves to multilevel
interpretation. The lokas in traditional myths are named after the beings that
inhabit them. The inhabitants define the place-world (loka) by giving them a
particular name––nāgaloka: the world of nāgas, snake people; devaloka: the
world of devas, divine beings, etc. Sometimes the stories call these worlds
by the name of the primary deity whose presence can be had in that world.
The trinity gods in Hindu cosmogony occupy special lokas such as śiva-loka,
visnu-loka, and brahma-loka. The earlier seven worlds described in Vedic texts
give way in later stories to the more personal lokas in the narratives that are
“inhabitant centric worlds.” The worldview about the lokas, remains constant,
however, retaining the cosmography of the hierarchical planes, the upper
worlds having more sanctity than the so-called lower worlds.
The cosmic order is maintained by balance, and this harmony was a
natural order called ṛta (= rita) or dharma in various texts (Keith 1925, 83–
84). Bilimoria (1997) explains that concept of ṛta is important as it connects
the created cosmos to a moral order within it: “Ṛta determines the place,
entitlement, function and end of everything” (2).
Thus, we find the worlds, though placed in relationship with each other,
are still bound by an order of divinity and importance. The heavenly world,
being relatively immortal and replete with pleasures and privileges unavailable
upon the earth and “lower” worlds was accorded a higher-status value. It is
significant to note that at the cosmic level, beings were not ordered according
to families or species––like properties, but ordering was first based on origin
and the world they inhabited. Thus, a divine serpent is higher in the hierarchy
than the human being on earth.
The understanding of this worldview is significant to the understanding of
the creation myths of sacred landscape features on the earth. The reason such
places are sacred and divine is because the feature is not earthy but has been
introduced by an event from another loka onto the bhūloka. The creation of
the land-place feature more often than not signifies a geographical descent of
some “other-worldly feature.” The descent (not fall12) from the higher worlds
is easier than the ascent. The descent of anything from the divine plane forms
an important part in the creation of the sacred in nature. The concept of the
descent of the divine or avatār that is very much a part of the vedic and purānic
tradition finds its counterpart in geographical descents of rivers and other
natural features on to the terrestrial. By being descended, these transfers of
rivers, mountains, lakes, and rocks from the heavens help the terrestrial beings,
such as the human, ascend.

12. While the word “fall” has an ethical connotation, this notion of descent does not.
52 Meera Baindur

The primary goal is the gaining of positive karma that allows one to access
higher births or planes such as heavens as well as the opportunity to attain
mokśa, the cessation of suffering. The transit between worlds is possible for
the beings that have eligibility or have gained enough merits (good karma).
Eck (1981) sums up the idea that tīrthas are like ladders to higher worlds:
“In sum, it is clear that the tīrtha is not only a riverside bathing and watering
place, but a place where one launches out on the journey between heaven and
earth. It is a threshold of time, or space, or ritual” (328). The original sacred
comes from the heavens––the devaloka. The rivers of India form one of the most
striking examples of this origination as sacred narrative. The Ṛg-vedic myth,
in which Indra slays the serpent Vṛtra, who had coiled around the heavens and
locked the waters inside, and thus frees the heavenly waters to fall to earth, is
recounted in this verse: “As your ally in this friendship, Soma, Indra for man
made the waters flow. He slew the serpent and sent forth the Seven Rivers.
He opened, as it were, the holes that were blocked” ([1889] 1973, 44–45).
Though these narratives of direct descent are far and few, it seems that there are
many more features that somehow are accounted for by oral histories that may
not occur in the literal rendering of the purānic or vedic texts. Historically it
seems likely that these located sacred land-places were adapted from an earlier
primitive tradition of spirits abiding in nature. Eck writes:

[T]he many specific tīrthas of India’s vast sacred geography are also well
grounded in yet another tradition: the non-Vedic tradition of indigenous India
which, despite its many areas of obscurity, was most clearly a tradition of life-
force deities associated with particular places. It was a locative tradition in
which genii loci under a variety of names––yaksas, nāgas, ganas, matrikas––
were associated with groves and pools, hillocks and villages, wielding power
for good or ill within their areas of jurisdiction. Many of the deepest roots of
India’s traditions of pāda and tīrthayātra are here in this place-oriented cult.
Although the myths associated with these places have changed, layering one
upon the other through the centuries, pilgrims have continued to come with
their vows and petitions, seeking the sight (darsana) and the token material
blessings (prasada) of the deity of the place. (324)

Eck refers to this as borrowing and assimilation of the pre-Vedic tradition into
the purānic lore. It also seems likely that many places create the narratives
that give them legitimacy through the association with popular Hindu texts
and gods. Often, in its māhatmya, a local tirtha will subscribe to the larger all-
India tradition by linking its sanctity to the great events of the major epics and
purāṇas. This might be seen as the geographical equivalent of Sanskritization
(336).

5. Sacred Imagination: Human Interactions and Rituals

The story of the descent of the Gańgā is much eulogized, having many
versions and subplots within the main story. In all the versions however, the
 Nature as Non-Terrestrial 53

narrative implies that the actual river, materially, is not of the earth but of the
heavens and is of godly content and essence. The presupposition that makes
this possible transfer of material from one loka is that the substances––gross
or subtle––are all the same and are made of the five elements. So a river from
heaven is as real as the one on earth. But its reality is a sacred reality, not the
reality of the earth. The way this river differs from an earthly stream is by
having the quality of sanctifying human beings and the earthly plane, and her
origins from devaloka.
In the secondary narratives of the heavenly river flowing upon the earth
are recounted the various miracles wrought on the human beings who take a
dip in her waters. The claim is that the experience of the ritual dip (ritual bath
called snān) is a terrestrial experience of a dip in a heavenly river that has been
transplanted to the earthly plane. The interaction between the land-place and
the human pilgrim in his embodied form can be conceptually understood by
using the concept of place as theorized by Casey.
The human subject gives identity to the undifferentiated geographies of a
city or natural regions by her interaction with the phenomenon and ordering
them into fragments of private and collective memory. The experience of the
human in the sacred natural land-place is different from the experience of a
human being in a sacred place like a temple. This seems to be an example
of what Casey (1993) calls a “placescape.” He refers to a placescape as
something that is generated by a collusion of the body and the landscape. This
identification of specific locations into placescapes occurs each time the subject
comes across unfamiliar territory––natural or settled (31). By this definition,
sacred land-places are placescapes because they are created by a collusion of
the earth-beings and land-places that have originated from the divine worlds.
Though located on earth and near enough to the familiar human habitats, the
land-places by the nature of their origin are alien, unfamiliar. The narratives
emphasize contact of the divine material with the body in the sacred place
rather than give priority to the experience of the presence or “darśan” through
a symbol or vision. The importance of bodily contact with the divine reality
is both phenomenological and ontological. The acculturation of this landscape
features, according to Casey, is “a social or communal act.” Place as the sacred
landscape thus is no longer just a “natural” category, it includes within itself a
historical component. On how these places, both cultural and social, become
shared realities he writes: “The culture that characterizes and shapes a given
place is a shared culture, not merely superimposed on the place but part of its
very facticity” (31).
The experience of the human being who has bodily contact with a part of
the divine world is very much linked to the idea of karma: “The dust (dhūli)
from a sacred place has a special significance for a vaiṣṇava. . . . While visiting
the tīrthas, the pilgrims rub the dust of the holy place on their forehead and
body as a mark of humble devotion.” (Chowdhury 2000, 74). The stalā
māhāṭmya story of the Papanasaṃ (in Tamil, the word means destroyer of
54 Meera Baindur

sins) waterfalls, further illustrates this point. A brother and sister separated
at birth by calamity fell in love with each other by mistake. They both soon
realized that they had sinned and wished to make amends by visiting all holy
rivers and waters. Learned people advised them that they must wear black
garments and bathe in all the holy waters until the clothes turn white. No holy
place gave them any relief until at last they bathed at the waterfalls called
Papanasaṃ. Upon bathing in the falls, their clothes turned white, and they
achieved salvation. The fish that live in the lake are golden hued and are never
killed or eaten (Das 1964, 44–45).
Whether the contact of the mud, water, land, or herbs, the natural tīrtha is
much favored over the built structures. So perhaps this is the reason why many
temples claim that the image of god was “found” rather than made.13 Naturally
occurring śiva stones or the śiva linga are also said to spring from Śiva loka.
Referred to as svayambhū (self-born), they attract worship in the least obvious
places even today such as an urban horticultural garden or in an ice-sculpted
form, or in the holy mountain shrine of Amaranth, reached after an arduous
trek. This tale also demonstrates Eck’s point about the concept of tīrtha, or
crossing over. Every sacred location forms a ladder where the human can cross
over to the state of salvation or to a state of heavenly experience of purity.
Eck (1981) remarks on the living tradition of these narratives: “The whole
of India’s sacred geography, with its many tirthas-those inherent in its natural
landscape and those sanctified by the deeds of gods and the footsteps of heroes-
is a living geography” (336). Place even as a natural landscape includes time
as an integral component of happening, not marked by physical parameters
but by the experience of a subject. This forms the basis of both shared and
unshared narratives. Most rituals and stories associated with a place can be
dismissed as mythical, but they are deeply metaphorical and give insights
into the place-experiences of these traditions. In Casey’s words: “We might
even say that culture is the third dimension of places, affording them a deep
historicity, a longue durée, which they would lack if they were entirely natural
in constitution” (1993, 32).

6. The Sacred and Mundane Places: Suggestions Towards an Ecological

Ethic
Land-place features are sacred, yet the reverence seems to be ritualistic without
regard for the physical degradation of the natural. A dichotomy that Kinsley
(2000) refers to, between the sacred and the mundane, exists as two different
spheres of belief (242). While the sacred landscape affects and impacts human
beings, the lower-valued human being (in comparison to the more scared and
exalted status of the divine worldly land-place) has no impact on the sacred

13. The famous statue of lord Balaji in Tirupati is said to have been dug out from the
earth by a devout king. This suggests the image was not of human origin but “other-
worldly”––a direct descent of the lord from his divine world in a corporeal image form.
 Nature as Non-Terrestrial 55

in return. On the other hand the mundane activities of the human both are
impacted by and in turn affect the natural––as in the case of the pollution of
the Gańgā or the destruction of a sacred grove. What are the nuances of the
sacred and the mundane with respect to natural landscapes? There exist some
conflicting notions of the sacred that I intend to discuss here.
The first among the contradictions is the idea of the earth as sacred. The
idea that the entire earth is a sacred goddess is evidenced by verses such as
Bhūmi sukṭa in the Vedas.14 The apparent contradiction in the concept of the
sacred earth and mundane regions of the land seems difficult to reconcile. If all
land is sacred, then what is sacred or mundane about some landscapes?
This contradiction is resolved by a study of the concept of the earth in
Indian thought as it has been transformed over time.15 One possible hypothesis
that I suggest is that there was a transformation of the idea of earth goddess into
a mere resource with the advent of agriculture. Another hypothesis links the
narratives that changed the vedic ideas of the earth that considered the earth as
sacred, a form of the great mother, into a divine goddess. The abstraction in the
mythology of the goddess earth into the Bhūdevi, or consort of the mighty god
Viśnu, separated the terrestrial from the concept of a divine “mother earth.”
With the development of agriculture, the experience of the terrestrial became
progressively mundane. This required the earth to be purified or sanctified
by ritual or contact with the divine. The loss of the divine earth mother is as
historical as it is political.
Secondly, from the conclusion about the origin myths of the sacred tīrthas
one can reason that the sacred is immutable and the attitude towards the sacred
is one of ritualistic reverence, not environmental restraint. Alley (2000) writes
about the two conflicting notions of pollution that exist in the Gańgā (322).
It is seen that the ecological idea of pollution relates to chemical and other
scientific parameters, while the priests equate the impurity with the breakdown
of morals and social values. The idea of the sacred land-place is located in
the sphere of sacred reality, not the mundane world of water and dirt. The
original sacred is therefore considered immutable and cannot be subject to the
degeneration. As I mentioned earlier, whichever land-place is not construed
with a myth or sacred history, conversely, is mundane. This is an important
issue related to sacred natural places that are local in nature. People from
different areas are unconnected with a sense of the place as they lack the
experience of the shared narrative would not revere the sacred geography. In
an essay comparing the pilgrimage of the Hindu with the aboriginal walkabout,
Kinsley (2000) points out how the sacred myths are like the dreamtime tales
of the aboriginals, and the landscape can be imagined as a text containing a
detailed narrative of the land in which these people are embedded (228). He
suggests that these implicit structures are not comprehensible to a person who

14. See Atharva Veda XII, 1, “Hymn to Goddess Earth.”

15. See Baindur (2009).
56 Meera Baindur

is outside the cultural context, and such a structure plays more than a mere
geographical role (229). This suggests that it should be the local carriers of the
sacred myth who should be the enforcers of any plausible ethics of place. Since
the sacred is already embedded in local practices, including the ecologically
relevant ethics through rituals that find resonance in both the sacred and the
ecological would be easier.
The idea of a geography that is sacred can also contribute positively to
environmental ethics. Along with the discourse of the sacred imagination, the
secondary narratives include normative rules that are to be followed in sacred
places. Like the restraint on fishing in the holy falls mentioned earlier, many
types of rules also surround the conduct of pilgrims to a sacred place. Jacobsen
(1993) calls these two discourses as the magic and the ethical discourse and
emphasizes the importance of the ethical discourse: “The second group of
textual statements aims at having an ethical impact and is of interest from
the point of view of environmental ethics of the place” (148) Illustrating the
importance of the practice of normative ethical restraints in a sacred place,
Jacobsen also recounts how pilgrims practice forms of ahimsa or nonviolence
in sacred places by not using footwear or consuming meat (146). The sacred is
to be experienced by dealing morally with the mundane even within the mind.
Within the sacred, we do have two schools of thought, one that emphasizes
that the mere ritual can be sufficient for the benefit of the sacred experience
and a second that holds that rituals without the support of moral conduct would
not benefit a pilgrim. The popular story is told of how all the sins clinging
to a pilgrim detach themselves and wait on the banks for the bather to take
a dip in the Gańga. They rejoin him as he steps out of the divine river. Such
sub-narratives included in the secondary narratives seem to actually critique
the ritual sacredness of the land-place and emphasize moral conduct as a
prerequisite for true experience of the sacred place. Verses in the Mahābhārata
(Vanaparva), for instance, describe the various moral practices that would
give the individual the full benefits of encountering the sacred. They include
observances like self-control, being truthful, following austerities, and treating
all beings as he would himself (Kane 1973, 562).
There are also ritualistic practices with a moral basis that seem to prevent
pollution of sacred places. For instance, the śiva purāṇa has a list of practices
to be followed near holy water bodies and rivers that includes not spitting into
the water, not washing clothes in a river directly but using the water to wash
elsewhere.
While I agree with the ethical discourses having relevance to a pilgrim in
a sacred place, I would like to point out that mere sacred imagination of the
land-place will not directly contribute to the ecological conservation of such
places. Instead, the impact would be an emphasis and a reawakening of the
ethical discourse of restraint that has to run parallel to the sacred stories of the
land. In the words of Jacobsen (1993): “Places of pilgrimage are places where
people, according to the normative statements, are expected to show restraint
 Nature as Non-Terrestrial 57

towards all living beings. There is therefore traditionally a relationship between

environmental ethics and sacred places” (148).
I end this essay with a brief note on the possible ways in which the idea of
sacred geography can be relevant to ecological ethics. It is in the body of human
being that both the mundane and the sacred meet. The human being is the agent
of moral action both for the ascent into higher worlds and the preservation of
the nature in this world. Though the purpose of the sacred is to create a way
for the ascent of the human being, and not ecological conservation, it is clear
that the emphasis on restrainy or other similar normative practices can serve
to create ecologically sensitive pilgrims. The idea is to include the normative
values within a place without the ecological value displacing the sacred
value or imagination. Wherever possible ritual practices must be supported
by ecologically planned structures.16 Asking people not to bathe in the holy
waters or visit a sacred rock would not be possible. However asking them not
to use plastic or eat or spit within the sacred perimeter would be well within
the discourse of a sacred place. The people’s relationship to a natural place is
pregiven by narratives that are socio-cultural. It is important therefore to take
into account the concept of sacred land-places and perceive them beyond the
mere natural features to create a viable eco-ethics of place.17

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