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The ecologists feel that man should maintain and develop an aggressive territorialism that will prevent overuse and destruction of his environment. In his "Small is Beautiful" Schumacher observes that economic values have overtaken human values. The conflict between economics and ecology on the one hand and economic value and human value must be avoided or reduced. There is a direct relationship between man and man, and man and his environment. It is time that man should learn to man himself.
Any ecological discourse should culminate in ethical questions and find its justification there. In view of the given social situation, a change of consciousness is what is to be invoked. Ethics is to be understood as a reflection theory of morality. The ecological communication will examine ethical possibilities and be able to prepare a field of development for their reformulation.
In an Indian context, the ethics of nature dictates the dharma of man and communities, which is subject to ecological imperatives. Vedic man had his views directed towards the whole universe and was amazed at what he perceived, the order that reign throughout the world he lived in, which he called Rta. The energy he understood is Agni, the fire, and he consciously worshipped the orderly energy that is at the root of all movement, including all forms of life. In the Rgveda, one comes across the description of fire who is the primordial god the eye and guardian of ta. Man, the observer must have rationalized the multifarious usages of fire while watching the outside world and the heat within himself. Order is everywhere and disorder, the exception. Order, the Įta, is a basic concept derived, like the "fireness in fire" from observation followed by logical thinking. The extension of this reasoning is that the natural elements like fire, wind, water air and all the natural transformations of man in his birth to death and that in the nature, the occurrences like flood, earthquakes etc. come within the format and realm of the external law and order, namely ta. The holistic possibility of the metaphysical realities and epistemic perceptions of the Indian schools of philosophy are based on the different explanation of this concept, which is the bedrock of religion, philosophy and ethics.
This paper attempts to critically analyze the idea of ethics in Indian Tradition relating to the environment and find out the Indian attitude and ethos as far the relation of man and nature is concerned. It also tries to unravel the causes of degradation of ethical environment which looks to be an offshoot of modernity and see if the tradition has anything to offer as damage-control measures for this malady.
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