The philosophical and scientific ideas developed in India over the centuries are, on analysis, found to be deeply related to ecological issues, both generally and specifically. Like the ancient ideas of China and of the Hellenic world, the ancient Indian ideas of the comparable period are cosmological and comprehensive in character. The Vedas and Upaniṣads, Laozi's Dao or in Parmenides' Nature of Being were all engaged in search of the first principle, One. They were all obliged to relate it to Many–Many individual objects of knowledge. The One–Many relationship is pregnant with both cosmological and ecological implications.
Broadly speaking, the objects we know around us are biotic (living) or abiotic. However, to many thinkers, especially to the pluralists and evolutionists, this twofold classification is simplistic and inadequate. They try to draw our attention to different grades of being or reality – physical, chemical, paleontological, botanical, biological, psychological, and...
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Chattopadhyaya, D.P. (2008). Environment and Nature: India. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9564
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