Democracy, Human Rights and Biodiversity in Indian Literature

The Indian literary tradition is primarily one of verse and is also essentially oral. The earliest works were composed to be sung or recited and were so transmitted for many generation before being written down. Indian democracy has some features of anarchy. A serious claim for early democratic institutions comes from the independent republics of India Sanghas and Ganas which existed as early as the 6th century BC and persisted in some areas until the 4th century AD. The concept of human rights is as old as the ancient concept of natural rights based on natural law. But these rights had been recognized and respected by all religions in the ancient India. The Mahabharata speaks about the importance of freedoms of individuals in a state. Long before ecology became the refrain of the global song at stockholm and rio the ancient Indic heritage had already provided a spacious spiritual home for the environmental ethos.