Sacred Groves and Local Gods by Eliza F. Kent (.PDF)
File Size: 4 MB
Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India by Eliza F. Kent
Requirements: .PDF reader, 4 MB
Overview: In recent years, India’s “sacred groves,” small forests or stands of trees set aside for a deity’s exclusive use, have attracted the attention of NGOs, botanists, specialists in traditional medicine, and anthropologists. Environmentalists disillusioned by the failures of massive
state-sponsored solutions to ecological problems have hailed them as an exemplary form of traditional community resource management. For in spite of pressures to utilize their trees for fodder, housing, and firewood, the religious taboos surrounding sacred groves have led to the conservation of
pockets of abundant flora in areas otherwise denuded by deforestation. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over seven years, Eliza F. Kent offers a compelling examination of the religious and social context in which sacred groves take on meaning for the
villagers who maintain them, and shows how they have become objects of fascination and hope for Indian environmentalists.
Genre: Non-Fiction > Faith, Beliefs & Philosophy
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