Environment

 

Many scriptures tell us that who uphold dharma will go to heaven. Those who sincerely follow what the religion says, those who perform prayer everyday, those who have utmost devotion will all go to heaven, they say. The precious Tamil book Siru Pancha Moolam says those who do five things will definitely go to heaven. What are the five things? They are, one who creates a pond, one who builds channels for water to flow, one who digs a common well for the society, one who creates agricultural land and one who plants trees.

What is heaven? It is nothing but the grand dream that we all can live happily on earth; that we can live well if we have all these things here on earth. What is surprising is that while our forefathers clearly outlined that those who do all the five things mentioned above will go to heaven, they did not mention that those who destroys the above will go to hell. Do you know why? At that time, thousands of years ago, they could not even imagine that man would even think of damaging these things, let alone destroy. Not only that, no need to go to hell, destruction of these life supporting features will itself make the earth a hell!

The epitome of virtues is very clearly laid out in just a short, two-line verse of Thirukkural: sharing with and taking care of all lives on earth is the foremost among all virtues compiled in all scriptures. The Tamil forefathers have so meticulously built care for nature as the foremost of duties of mankind.

If you venture to think about this, we cannot deny that the first right for all produce on earth goes to the animals and birds that live on earth. It is from them that man learned what to eat and what to avoid. The abundance of trees and plants is because of the dispersal of seeds by animals and birds. Man has learnt everything only from nature, and the animals and birds. Man learned to create a dwelling for him just about a few thousand years ago, but the weaver bird has been doing this for millions of years! Even though man seems to be last species to come to live on earth, the kind of damage and destruction that he is causing is really terrible and unbelievable. It is pertinent to remember what the famous ornithologist Dr Salim Ali once said: that birds can live and flourish on a land where there is no man, but man cannot live even for a few years on a land where there are no birds. Do you know that if bees were not there, man could not survive for more than four years? The entire plant produce on earth depends on cross-pollination done by the bees. The Tamil civilisation had realised this two thousand years ago and had even cared to mention it in its scriptures!

If you look at who all are really caring for the earth and its environment today, it is really astonishing. During one of my visits to a village, I was walking with a 70-year old elderly man, with a young boy accompanying us. The boy playfully threw a stone at a passing crow in flight, and just missed it. The old man noticed this and asked the boy why he was trying to hurt a old bird. I was bewildered. This man himself was old, with fading eyesight and falling teeth, and how could he identify a flying crow as old? I asked him. He asked to look at the bird, pointed out the open space on its wings as it fluttered its wings to fly, and explained to me that as birds get old, they start losing feathers on their wings, and cannot fly far and fast. That is why, out of pity for that bird, he admonished the boy. This was the man who had never gone to school, nor had heard the wise words of learned men, but actually followed the most important virtue of caring for a fellow living being on earth! All he knew was life, nature and how to love and live with nature. These simple men are upholding the virtue of caring for nature.

Then there was another village I visited that was situated at the bottom of the slope of mountain. There were four big ponds. My friend with whom I was chatting asked me if I could see the fifth, small puddle of water behind these ponds. I asked him what was that. He told me that in his village, even if these four ponds ran dry, the villagers would ensure that the fifth pond would remain live by periodically desilting it, because that was the place where the bees used to drink water! It was from him that I learned that day that bees had a separate time to visit the waterbody, which was neither during the day nor the night, but at the twilight time when the sky would be clear of any other bird. I could not even locate the puddle, but the villagers were busy keeping the bees safe! I could not but lament that while we are raising our voices to save a 100-year old building, we just do not care about razing and levelling thousand year old water ways in our quest for growth!

It is apt to look at who our forefathers hailed as great men. It was not the kings, not the wealthy, not even the learned. They only praised those who gave all they had to the others. There were seven such great men, and the first two among them were the ones who gave their shawl to a shivering peacock (Began) and the other who left his chariot for the tender jasmine plant to hang on to (Pari), their care and concern crossing the species plane, beyond the general gesture of caring for co-habitants.

We have not inherited the earth from our elders. We have only borrowed it from our children. It is our bounden duty to preserve it and give it back to them in a better condition. The simple, caring men look at earth as mother nature, an inseparable component of life. The rich and powerful look at the earth as a resource – of thorium, coal, granite, etc. - meant for possession. They do not realise that earth is a resource that is both precious and sacred that it has to be preserved and cared for. I am reminded of a proverb that says that it is only when the last tree is cut, when the last drop of water turns poison and when the last fish is caught, that man would realise he cannot survive by eating money.

There are five others sitting here who are going to speak on other topics such as social virtue, virtue in education, etc. However, I would like to say that if man fails in all these virtues, he would still continue to live on earth, albeit in a tarnished society. But if he fails in caring for the earth and environment, that would spell doom for the human race itself. We do not realise that the human species is but a very small percentage of living things on earth. The entire human population would not even weigh a fraction of a hillock nearby. We are smaller than the ants. Yes, the total weight of all the ants in the world would be more than that of the total weight of all the people. Let us not push ourselves to such a state that the future inhabitant has to dig to find out what humans looked like, like we do now to find how dinosaurs lived.

(My translation of a Tamil speech shared in Whatsapp.  I am trying to recollect who the speaker is, and will give credit once I get it)

June 5, 2019