Himalayan Buddhism as Human Geological Agency: Rethinking the Novelty of "the Anthropocene"

This article uses a Himalayan Buddhist lens to critically interrogate a fundamental premise of "the Anthropocene"-that the epoch commemorates a "newfound" capacity of humans to mobilise Earth forces. Rather, Himalayan Buddhism has long held that humans wield geological agency, mo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of global Buddhism Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 75 - 92
Main Author Millington, Alice
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Penrith South Journal of Global Buddhism 01.06.2024
Society for the Study of Global Buddhism
Subjects
Agricultural production
Anthropocene
Buddhism
Buddhists
Centuries
Climate change
Deities
Eurocentrism
Geology
Himalayan Buddhism
Human agency
Industrial Revolution
kawa nyampa
Nepal
Spirituality
Topography
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Summary:This article uses a Himalayan Buddhist lens to critically interrogate a fundamental premise of "the Anthropocene"-that the epoch commemorates a "newfound" capacity of humans to mobilise Earth forces. Rather, Himalayan Buddhism has long held that humans wield geological agency, mobilised through relationships with territorial landscape deities, which inflict severe weather in retaliation for human moral infractions. Offering an alternative model of anthropogenic climate change, Buddhist and Indigenous lifeworlds challenge Western convictions that "the Anthropocene" is a novel planetary epoch. Since the term has gained a vibrant discursive life beyond geology, its cultural assumptions-rather than biophysical thresholds-are primarily evaluated, revealing an extension of Eurocentric colonial logic into this new planetary chapter. Alternatively, I suggest the Himalayan Buddhist term "kawa nyampa" (degenerate era) better encapsulates our transition towards environmental breakdown. There was no need to "invent" the Anthropocene as a new epoch of thought-it had long already existed.
ISSN:1527-6457
1527-6457
DOI:10.26034/lu.jgb.2024.3815