Engaging with Prakriti

This article analyzes the practice of ecocriticism in India. It explains that ecocriticism in the Indian context has a unique “advocacy function” both with regard to the reality of the world that it inhabits and “the imaginary spaces it opens up for contemplation of how the real world might be transformed.” It discusses the theories of nature in Indian philosophical schools of thought and mentions that nature is revered as prakriti or “the primordial vastness, the inexhaustible, the source of abundance.” This article also highlights the emerging trends in the socio-cultural spaces of India which call for imaginative ways of an ecocritical engagement with a contemporary ecological dharma.