Chantal Maillard

The Tree Of Life

Original title:

El árbol de la vida. La naturaleza en el arte y las tradiciones de la India

About the book:

The Tree Of Life

Nature in the art and traditions of India

In the West nature has been conceived as a source of resources over which human beings have complete rights. The mere calling for its protection and conservation will not in itself solve the problem, but rather disguises as paternalism the very attitude that has generated it. So is a change of attitude possible in which we realise we are a part of nature and that caring for our environment  is the respect we owe to ourselves?

This book, unique of its kind, brings together articles that describe the relationship with nature that the peoples of India have had in the past and still have; their way of living with nature informed by the idea of the universe as a great organism endowed with immense creativity and of which all of us form a part.

Authors as renowned as Coomaraswamy, Raimon Panikkar and Oscar Pujol are joined by other specialists who pursue their investigations in universities both in the West and in India, in the fields of aesthetics, philosophy and Art Theory.

Taken together, they offer a broad perspective on the place occupied by nature in Indian culture, both in its systems of thought (the cosmology of Shiva and Shakti Hinduism or Jain ethics) and in art (iconic representations of the woodland deities/gods of the forest) or in ritual.  In each of these ambits, the symbolic function of the natural elements is analysed in a clear and readable way, inviting us to discover how trees, lotus flowers, fire and water  are transformed into active metaphors providing ways of understanding the world as a seamless whole.
 

About the author:

Chantal Maillard is a doctor of philosophy and holds a university lectureship in Aesthetics and Art Theory in the Philosophy Department of the University of Malaga. Among her published works are La sabidurí