Sacred Ecology and Dharmic Ethics: Toward an Indigenous Framework of Ecological Consciousness in The Valmiki Ramayana: A Qualitative Ecocritical Study Based on Bibek Debroy's 2017 Translation

Ecological crises have multiple dimensions including technological and political, but they also involve values, social relations, and ethical imagination. This research considers the cultural and ethical aspects of the ecological problems of our time, within the framework of the Valmiki Ramayana, by exploring Sacred Ecology, Dharmic Ethics, and Ecological Consciousness. The main text is Bibek Debroy's 2017 English translation of the Baroda Critical Edition. I carried out a purposeful selection of passages from the Bāla, Ayodhyā, Araṇya, Kiṣkindhā, and Sundara Kāṇḍas, and subjected them to close reading, thematic analysis, cross-episode comparison, and conceptual synthesis. The analysis was restricted to four ecological domains: forests and woodlands, rivers and waterways, non-human beings, and sacred landscapes. This research indicates that Sacred Ecology assigns moral and spiritual value to non-human beings, and Dharmic Ethics provides a framework of restraint, reciprocity, compassion, care, and protection, and provides an accountable social-political order. Ecological Consciousness is the integration of the two. This research provides a unique contribution to the Environmental Humanities by offering an indigenous framework that negotiaties context specific ethical notions with ecocriticism without assuming that sacredness by itself is sufficient evidence of conservation.