Traditionally the edifice of culture has been built on its distinctiveness from nature: culture is a human institution while nature is the exterior realm; culture encompasses human endorsed rules, values and exercise of will while nature ordains its own operation. However, most cultures have held nature in high esteem. In India, the earth has been conceived of as ?mother?. The concept of ishavasyam entails that divinity resides everywhere in nature and hence, it must be revered.
About the author Dr. Bitasta Das is Instructor-Humanities at the Undergraduate Programme of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She has a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and has qualified the NET in Folk Literature. At UG-IISc she teaches two papers: ‘Cultural Analysis’ and ‘Mapping India through the Folk Arts’.
