Are there plants in India?

Could plants have been conceived by the Indian traditions in exactly the same way as in the (basically Western) contemporary world-view? The category of “plant may end up appearing less uncontroversial then initially assumed. On the one hand, “plants” do not constitute a coherent whole in Indian views; on the other hand, what we consider to be “plants” are not always sharply distinguished from what we would rather call “animals” or “matter”. By the way, one may note that similar problems arise even within the Western common understanding of plants, as soon as it is pushed towards less-common cases, such as see animals like corals (often considered to be plants, since they do not move), or phytoplancton (often considered to be made of animals –possibly because it moves through the oceans), not to speak about bacteria and micro-organisms. On a similar vein, we can detect extensions and inner partitions within what we would call “plants” in Indian traditions. First, in many texts (especially Vedic and early Jain ones) “plants” are seen as sentient, but only insofar as they are part of a cosmos which is in all its aspects not conceived as inert. In this case, plants are part of the same organic continuum embracing all elements of the universe and the universe itself as a whole. Second, in other texts plants (especially trees) are connected to Plant-Deities. The exact link between a plant and the Deity inhabiting it is not easy to ascertain, especially because one has to understand it out of narrative or religious texts which only incidentally deal with the issue. The Deity seems often to be conceived as inseparable from the tree, although in other (later?) cases it is said to be able to leave the plant and move into another one. In any case, it cannot live out of a plant, but for such short shifts. In some (again, later?) cases, Deities are said to have limbs, children and so on, and seem, hence, to be conceived in an anthropomorphic way. One wonders whether –at a stage which can only be inferred out of the texts preserved– the plants inhabited by a Deity were themselves thought of as Deities, or as Deities' bodies and not just Deities' abodes. Third, “plants” are not equal: almost all texts (until contemporary ones) take for granted the higher status of trees (often called vanaspati) among “plants”. Both phytotherapy and contemporary actions in favour of plants focus on the preservation of trees. From a different point of view, the more generative parts of plants (seeds, sprouts, blossoms, etc.) are deemed to deserve a greater respect, this time in Jain and Early Buddhist texts. Lastly, in many philosophical texts one witnesses a sort of “rationalistic” attitude against the evidence in favour of the sentience of plants found in Dharmaśāstra and/or narrative texts. While reading such philosophical texts one sometimes gets the impression that they are reacting against a popular belief. Thus, from their point of view they are proposing a neutral, rationale view against a folkloristic one. A Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā primer (Rāmānujācārya's Tantrarahasya), for instance, counts plants as living beings, but excludes them –overtly dissenting from some Manusmṛti quotations– from the possibility of fruition (bhoga) and, hence, from the reign of karman-bound creatures. Later Buddhist texts even state that plants do not live and classify them on the same level of earth, rocks, etc.

Jainism and nature

Paul Dundas wrote an illuminating essay (The Limits of a Jain Environmental Ethic, in Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. by Christopher Key Chapple, Cambridge Mass. 2002) warning about the risk to overestimate the 'ecological' commitment of Jainism and inspiring the following considerations of mine:

1. True, Jainists endorse ahiṃsā and include plants among living beings, but they do not share our contemporary concern for 'nature' as a whole. They focus on suffering individuals, and would not share our care for protecting a natural environment even at the expenses of some individuals living in it (for instance, we might decide to kill all wild dogs in the area of Canberra in order to preserve the Australian original habitat).

2. Nature (and even the sum of the individuals inhabiting it) is not something to be preserved in itself. One should strive for ahiṃsā in order not to accumulate new karman, not (only) for the sake of plants and microscopic organisms.

3. Points 1-2 entail no ethic evaluation. Ecology is part of the contemporary world view but the fact that we feel immediately close to it does not necessarily entail that it is the 'right' way to look at nature. In fact, the last century has –notwithstanding ecology– destroyed the natural world much more than the preceding eras.

(In the photograph: Jains avoid to swallow small animals by wearing these masks)

Classifications of prescriptions: Mīmāṃsakas get organized

At first, I have been looking for a comprehensive classification of prescriptions in Mīmāṃsā and got irritated by the simultaneous presence of what seemed to me as competing classifications. Later on, I realised that these various classifications originated out of specific exegetic concerns. All of them have been included into inclusive classifications due to the Mīmāṃsaka (and Indian) inclination to classify whatever possible. These classifications differ from the ones presupposed in Dharmasūtra/Grammar, etc., as far as I understand, also because of the stress laid on the common vidhi-nature of all their elements. Then, among post-Maṇḍana authors, vidhi has been regarded as an important category in itself and in certain cases one started to classify vidhis departing from a different point of view, that is investigating the nature of vidhi itself, independent of a specific textual passage to be interpreted. In other words, pre-Maṇḍana authors identified single instances and collected them all together as vidhis. Some post-Maṇḍana (and especially later) authors, instead, could have started to aim at understanding the vidhisvarūpa ("own nature of prescription") and to see classifications as explaining it. This shift is not completed in any of the texts (even later ones) I am aware of, which all explain vidhitattva (the "essence of prescription") without mentioning the types of vidhis and insert instead classifications among exegetical topics. Maṇḍana himself seem to 'use' the classifications he was aware of, and not to understand them as pointing out the nature of vidhi (which, instead, is explained by him as the fact that the action prescribed is the instrument to achieve a desired result, iṣṭasādhanatva).

Intellectual Copyright

I have argued elsewhere about the re-use of other authors' material in Indian texts. I argued that the concept of 'intellectual copyright' has to be re-thought in ancient India (and in whatever pre-XVIII century country, as far as I know). This has massive ethical and philological implications, I believe, since to assume that knowledge obviously becomes part of a common reservoir influences one's compositional habits and worldview in general. I am not saying that classical Indian authors were not selfish or not ambitious, I am just suggesting that our concept of authorship and of 'intellectual property' may not fit with theirs.

Vandana Shiva has often expressed her worries about the sort of Indian (poor) farmers willing to buy crops from Monsanto or other companies which accept to be paid only after the harvest. Those farmers, she maintains, are not really aware of the fact that they are buying patented 'basmati rice' and that they will have to buy new corns every year (plants are hybridised). They cannot realise it –follows Shiva– because the idea of patenting a plant does not fit within their mental landscape. Interesting enough, Shiva concludes "This is known as 'biopiracy', the piracy of the knowledge and resources of the poor by the rich". Biopiracy is promoted, most notoriously, by U.S. laws and by WTO agreements that globalize Western-style "intellectual property rights" (Vandana Shiva, Tomorrow's Biodiversity, p. 132; Stolen Harvest, p. 89).

I do not share her attitude, but it is interesting to see the same argument implemented in a very different context.

Two trends in Indian arguments in favour of plants

There seems to be two different trends in Indian arguments in favour of plants.

1. On the one hand, some schools considered plants as simple living beings and, hence, respected them. For these schools, it is not uncontroversial that plants have a sort of basic awareness and that they take part to the cycle of karman. Jainism is the more consistent in arguing for the living status of plants. Early Buddhism may have included plants among living beings, but it is not clear whether only because of a general costume (and later Buddhism explicitly considers plants as just 'things'). 'Orthodox' schools of the so-called Hinduism are, again divided into two: epics and literature seem not only to argue for the sentience of plants, but to take it as self-evident, whereas philosophical schools usually deny it and interpret these passages as metaphorical.

2. On the other hand, plants are not only regarded as either insentient things or as simple living beings: in many cases we witness instances of plants being regarded as noble living beings, to be honoured and respected. This may have to do with the idea that plants are inhabited by divinities, but I sense that this is only a later, rationale, explanation of a primordial respect towards plants. Mahendra Kumar Mishra kindly made me aware of a paper of him about tribal ideas about nature, which by and large go in this direction. I am not daring to conclude that the 'Hindu' respect for plants as noble beings derives from a tribal concept of plants (nor do I believe in a 'uniform' tribal worldview, unchanged throughout centuries). I would rather propose that a 'lateral' (=non mainstream) notion of plants as noble beings has been preserved in some tribal milieus. Whatever the case, the appraisal of plants, even within those who acknowledged them as living beings, is highly differentiated.

Indological blogs

There seem to be two sorts of scholars' blogs relating to India:

–blogs about texts, textual problems, problems with softwares for textual criticisms and the like

–blogs about specific problems (focusing on a certain aspect of Indian culture).

Besides, there are blogs I cannot read (such as Kei Kataoka's japanese one) and, hence, evaluate. Just some posts, helas, are dedicated to India's philosophical thought as represented in its texts. There is, I mean, no Manyul Im of Indian philosophy. Why? I, for one, would be an assiduous reader of such a blog! And I guess that it would also enhance the feeling of scholars of Indian philosophy to belong to a group and to share –more or less– a/some mission(s) (understanding Indian philosophical ideas/making Indian philosophy part of the philosophical scene/…).

Desires and needs

I have been working a lot, recently, on the concept of desire (a paper of mine in Italian can be found here). Then, a student made me aware of the fact that, apparently, Indian philosophers do not distinguish between needs and desires. Does this only depend on the fact that –being mainly Brahmins or monks– they did not have to worry about their basic needs? I think, rather, that it has to do with the fact that there are no 'pure' needs. Every need (first of all, the need for food) is influenced by our desires, so that, for instance, one strives for a piece of cheese or for an apple but not for a piece of meat.