Society and Environment Relationship Essay

📌Category: Culture, Environment, Religion
📌Words: 1323
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 14 January 2022

Society and Environment relationship is the fundamental principle in early civilizations, that often were the driving forces. This relationship caused the formation of many civilizations and for them to sustain. Society and the environment's relationship illustrates the building blocks of these early civilizations. Across early Asia, Africa, and China this relationship can been seen at full effect shown by primary sources. The purpose of this paper is to prove that society and environment relationship is that they used religion and Gods to understand nature and the overall world  

Religion in the form of Gods was used by ancient civilizations to understand and make sense of nature. Nature and the Gods are almost interconnected because often early civilizations used Gods to describe nature for the events that occurred. By using these Gods and forming religions to understand what was happening in their environment is the relationship between that and society. We can see this in Mesopotamia and in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where basically the Gods decided there would be a flood for a reason we are not given (E 36). This first shows that the humans believed Gods created natural disasters and could ultimately do whatever they wanted. Revealing that humans should also be fearful of the Gods as they appear to be arbitrary, connects the Gods to nature and in result the society to the environment. Society is impacted by their perception of the Gods to act in a way that they believe will be beneficial, which proves that the relationship between society and environment is using religion/gods and understanding nature. 

In addition to this, in early African societies, the Hymn to Osiris played a significant role in ascribing to Osiris about maintaining life on earth. This once again is how the people of early civilizations used Gods, in this case Osiris, to describe events of nature and as a result impacting society. In this passage the big picture is that it describes the society and nature of the Egyptians and how they used this to describe various events. This passage does exactly that, where Osiris is attributed to events that in this case are benefiting the Egyptians. The hymn specifically states how Osiris generated the Nile River from the sweat of his palms and continues to allow the Nile to flow and empty its banks (TE 68). This shows how Osiris is attributed to maintaining life on earth because the Egyptians relied on the Nile for agriculture. This proves that the relationship between society and environment is using Gods to understand nature because the society of the Egyptians relied on the environment of the Nile. Since Egypt depended on the Nile and in essence kept the society afloat, they attributed a God to it and felt if they continued to please the God it would continue to provide the Nile River. This clearly shows that the relationship between the society and environment is linked by religion and used to describe nature as Osiris is used here to describe the Nile. Taking it one step further, in essence Osiris is Egypt because it is the Nile and without the Nile there is no water and without water there are no people and obviously no people there is no Egypt. In addition to Osiris being the Nile the hymn also attributes all institutions of civilizations to Osiris including buildings, oxygen, and everything in between. Once again showing that the hymn is taking an abstract and phenomenon force and attributing human characteristics, and simply stated is society connecting with the environment through religion. 

Furthermore, the relationship between society and environment can be seen through the Ayrans and their Gods. In particular The Rig-Veda, describes the Hindu God Indra. Indra is primarily a war god, but Indra also had a domestic function, and in the Rig-Vedas its invoked that Indra is the creator and protector of agricultural produce (TE 83). Being an agricultural society, if the society believed that Indra was in fact the creator and protector of the main livelihood then that is a significant relationship between the society and the environment. Agriculture often allowed the expansion of many of these early civilizations, so having good produce and contributing this success to a God shows just how prudent gods were with the society. This proves that the relationship was indeed using Gods to understand nature because the success they had with agriculture, the society contributed it to a God, in Indra, therefore using it to understand nature, and also making the environment sacred in some form. With this the Hymn to Purusha and the Code of Manu tells us about the creation and nature of the different castes. Though this is not technically nature it is a specific link to society. The Hymn to Purusha mostly tells us about the creation of the different castes while the Code of Manu tells us the nature of the different castes including the tasks and occupations of those castes. Firstly, both of these passages describe the different castes as different body parts. In summary the Brahman was the mouth, Kshatriya are associated with arms, Vaishyas are the thighs, and Shudra are the feet (E 45,46). Further explained in the Code of Manu, the Brahmans were associated with mouth because there were the priests and Kshatriyas were associated with arms because they were the warriors and the part of the nobles. In addition, Vaishyas are thighs because they were the ones who tended cattle and cultivators of land. The Shudra are the feet because they were the ones who served the other three castes, and everything ran on them (E 46). The significance of all of this is that this creation of God resembles a human being as each body part represents a different function. Instead of connecting a God to nature, they are organizing their society by castes and through a single God. Illustrating the relationship between society and environment as it is clearly using a God to describe and legitimize the society into castes.

Finally, in ancient China, The Mandate of Heaven is substantial in telling us about the religious and social world of the ancient Chinese and reveals the relationship between society and environment. The Mandate says various ideas the first being that when the Xia dynasty was in power, life was peaceful, tranquil, and prosperous, as even saying the animals were happy (E 80). This is important because in summary the Mandate follows this as the descendants of Xia were not like the previous rulers, therefore lost the Mandate. The King of Shang overthrew the Xia dynasty, as the king was a virtuous man, thus deserving the Mandate to rule. This is significant because the mandate almost lays out the guidelines for the ruler and the punishment of being a corrupt leader. In addition to this the Mandate described why the king of Shang was virtuous and deserving of the rule when it basically says he surrounded himself with wise people and listened to his elders (E 81). This tells us of the ancient Chinese about what was expected of a good ruler and also the religious side as the heavens would replace the ruler if he was not deserving. Finally, near the end of the mandate it says that there is going to be a day of reckoning where you have a choice to act this way or that way, however there is going to be moral repercussions (E 81). Regardless of the mandate justifying power, it is coming from the heavens, so the religion is placing a person in power and directly effecting the society. Since there is no nature at play here, the mandate is used to legitimatize rulers and therefore help the people understand the world they live in. 

Overall, shown by these early civilizations the relationship between society and environment is that they used religion and gods to understand and make sense of nature and the world they lived in. These people used religion to understand nature in order to do something with the environment and the environment in almost all cases determines the how, where, and why of the civilization. This is important because it provides a deep look into these civilizations that reveal various aspects about them including religion, social life, and more. In general, this relationship tells an extreme amount about ancient civilizations in all. For example, it often reveals the “why” that is often asked about various traits of these civilizations. Through these primary sources we can answer some of these questions and looking at the relationship between society and environment find out much about the societies. 

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