Abstract
This book is the first of a three-volume project on humans and the environment in South Asia, brought out as a special issue of the Religions of South Asia series, with the intended goal of fostering cross-disciplinary study on the enculturation of nature. The human–animal encounter in the West is often presented as a clash or as one in which the former has to transcend, control or subjugate the latter. By contrast, in South Asia, the relationship is more fluid. Ideas of transmigration, incarnation and reincarnation allow subjects to move between forms of life that may be human, animal, plant or mineral through never-ending cycles of birth and rebirth determined by the law of karma.
The structure of the book is modelled on the Panchatantra, the most famous collection of animal folk tales in South Asia, and is divided into five tantras or parts, each of which evokes a set of moods or affects in accordance with the aesthetic theories laid down in ancient texts such as the Natyashastra and Dhwanyaloka. The themes which are supposed to reflect the existential orientations of human life are as follows: Wonder, Monstrosity and Conflict which explores the portentous nature of animal life and its pedagogical role for humans; Conflict, Ethics and Environment in which animals embody conflicts in ideology, status and gender or kinship in territory and environment; Environment, Myth and Devotion which discusses the role of animals in origin myths and in the foundation of environment and territory; Devotion, Wisdom and Awe which includes tales of devotion, love and piety; and finally Awe, Fear and Death in which animality is embodied in ominous presence—fear and reverence.
The contributors belong to disciplines that range from Indology, art history, literature, anthropology, religious studies and so on, giving the volume both depth and variety. Many of the essays explore traditional themes but the focus on animals gives them a novel and interesting theme. Thus, in his discussion on talking animals in classical Indian literature, Patrick Olivelle shows the many different roles that such animals serve: didactic, instructional and also critical when they become the voice of reason and conscience. David Smith examines the hybrid animal figures called vyalas on the walls of the Khajuraho temples, telling us that their location next to male and female figures says something about their sexuality wherein the attribution of animality may be associated with superhuman qualities. Each of the tantras or sections have a mix of essays based on classical and modern literature. Thus, the first section, Davide Torri’s essay, in contrast to the two discussed above, is about Kipling’s Jungle Book and its reflection of colonial India. Unfortunately, space does not permit me to describe all the essays in the book but some of the ones that I found most enlightening are those by David Pinault about Muslim views on the spiritual status of animals that are markedly different from those assigned to animals in many of the Indic religions. Thus, according to Pinault, animals are instinctively Muslim as is evident in their bodily posture, as are trees and even grass. They prostrate themselves before Allah and can serve as exemplars for human conduct. The only difference between humans and animals and this is what gives the former the right to dominate over the animal kingdom is the fact that only humans have the capacity to make moral choices. Other essays that I found especially interesting were those by Xena Zeiler that explores the figure of the crow in tantric spiritual practices; Stefano Beggiora’s essay on the intimate relationships of humans, tigers and tiger spirits in tribal Odisha; and Fabrizio Ferrari’s essay on the ass as a personification of illness in north Indian folklore. The last is quite novel because it focuses on the Sitala, the smallpox goddess’s mount (vahana) and discusses the singular properties of the ass that makes it a suitable representation of illnesses of various types. Following the writings of Deleuze and Derrida, there has been a heightened interest in using figures of animality to model different kinds of sociality and relationship. This edited volume is a novel addition to that body of literature and will appeal to a wide range of scholarly disciplines.