Amazon Burning: This Brazilian Scholar’s Views On Vedic Ecology Present A Lasting Solution

Amazon forest fires are raging. Reports speak of more than 72,000 such fires in 2019 alone.

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, was forced to announce a 60-day prohibition on the deliberate burning of forests. However, Brazil’s National Space Research Institute reported 3,859 fire outbreaks following 48 hours of this Presidential announcement.

In this context, it is of importance to read and reflect on the works of an eminent Brazilian biologist, Dr Marta Vannucci.

Vannucci the first woman scientist to be elected member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She has written about the Vedic conceptions of environment and how the Vedic seers understood the dynamics of ecology.

Born as an Italian in 1921, her father was a scientist and her mother was a mystic. Vladimir Besnard (1890-1960), considered as the father of Brazilian oceanography, invited her to be part of his research team. This project would later become Brazil’s first research institute dedicated to the oceanographic sciences.

Even in the 1950s, in her studies, she emphasised on the importance of studying the organism and the environment as a whole.

In an article published in 1957, Marta used a term that Julian Huxley had coined in 1940 — the ‘New Systematic’.

She wrote that for the New Systematic, we need to recognise the fact that what we have before our eyes is only a certain phase of a long chain of forms in continuous evolution.

Hence, the ecological dynamics and geographical distributions need to be taken into consideration and mere morphological data is not enough.

She then applied this to her own studies of planktons.

Aged 48, she associated herself with UNESCO for studying different human cultures and their ancient knowledge systems — a legacy that would have come from her mother’s side.

During this phase, she became more and more enchanted with Vedic literature.

Dr Densie Navas-Pereira, a colleague of Vannucci’s, points out how she combined her talents in organised ecological studies with the local conditions of the places whose philosophy she studied:

Her two books, The Ecological Readings in The Veda Matter-Energy-Life (1993) and Human Ecology in the Vedas (1999) critically examine Vedic literature for what we can learn from the perception of the Rishis.

To her, the Rishis representing the Vedic man experienced ‘the whole universe holistically ‘ and were ‘awakened to the Cosmic law and order’.

In her works on Vedas, she learnt from great giants of Vedic literature and Indian culture like Prof. R N Dandekar and Dr Kapila Vatsyayan. Her humanistic humility comes out in the very preface of Ecological Readings ...:

Her attempt at interpreting the Vedas was ‘as a biologist ... biased by trying to decipher the code with a bio-ecological key.’

Yet, she did not impose her own assumptions on Vedic literature but tread on the steps of great Vedic commentators like Sayana.

As we enter her works, we see an independent emergence of striking similarity (not absolute sameness) with the works of Sri Aurobindo and Ram Swarup.

Consider the following as a sample of the way she approaches her subject:

Particularly of interest to us is what her decoding of Vedic literature with her ‘bio-ecological key’ reveals about the relation of humans to that great natural ecosystem, with which Vedic humanity had to interact intimately — the forests.

Though a believer in Aryan theory (as most of the scholars of her time), she did not base her reading of Vedic literature obsessively on ‘amicable or not-so-amicable contact’ between the so-called ‘Arya’ and ‘anarya’.

At the outset, she points out how errors can seep in when ‘interpreters’ of Vedic literature sitting in their libraries, far removed from the original natural settings of Vedic seers try to interpret them.

She also points out how Vedic literature reveals one of the most enduring aspects of a pan-Indian civilisational phenomenon — sacred groves — an epitome of the Goddess, who has evolved into diverse regional forms how She forms the connecting element.

In passing, she mentions how ‘the sacred forests’ which are ‘ specially significant in the Hindu and Buddhist cultures ‘ were 'undoubtedly a pre-Aryan concept' but 'was probably adopted by the immigrants' and that 'forest use and management would have been learned by the newcomers from the local inhabitants' (p.101 & p.102).

In her next book Human Ecology in the Vedas (part of the series on ‘Reconstructing Indian History & Culture’. Published in 1999 ), she distinguished ‘Vedic and Vedic derived philosophies’ from theistic religious dogmas:

In both her works (which overlap in contents), she makes an observation which is relevant to some of the present day controversies. While discussing her reading of ecological concepts in Rig Veda, Prof. Dandekar in a personal communication 'objected to her reading science in the RV saying that no scientific theories were developed by the Rishis.’ Vannucci writes:

She then takes the example that Dandekar gives — the intense devotion with which Rishi Vasishta praises asura Varuna.

More relevant to the present scenario of burning forests is Vannucci’s commentary on the short Rig Vedic hymn on Aranyaani — ‘the Lady of the Forest’. Here, the 14 pages of her commentary become an important protocol for human engagement with a vital planetary natural phenomenon like forest. She says:

Vannucci brings in another parallel between ‘Lady of the Household’ and ‘Lady of the forest’.

Today, the Amazon forests are burning. One of the major motivating forces for their burning is the meat industry — particularly beef. Brazil has become the world’s largest beef exporter.

Alexander More, a climate change historian at Harvard University and the University of Maine points out:

On the question of humans taking in excess from nature, Vannucci had specifically written:

Current technology gives humans overwhelming superiority of most of nature. And this is where Vannucci cautions humans, especially the West:

The spark that started the Amazon forest fire is in all likelihood the Asuric heart of humanity. The solution, as this Brazilian ecologist discovered, is in understanding Rta and moving in harmony with it, which is Dharma.