From Folktale to Eco-tale: Rethinking Vijaydan Detha's Baatan Ri Fulwari in the Light of Environmental Humanities

Abstract: This paper explores Vijaydan Detha’s Baatan Ri Fulwari (Garden of Tales) comprising Rajasthani oral folktales sourced from rural Borunda (Jodhpur), through the lens of environmental humanities, in the interdisciplinary approach reinterpreting it as an eco-tale. Rereading these stories through the lens of environmental humanities uncovers ecological sensibilities, human-animal interrelations, reverence for nonhuman beings, adaptations within arid landscapes, and symbolic exchanges between humans and nature. All these relationships foreground sustainability, resilience and environmental ethics. It argues that Detha’s storytelling implicitly advocates for ecological balance, respect for biodiversity and ethical coexistence with the more-than-human world before the rise of modern environmentalism. Drawing on theorists such as Cheryll Glotfelty (advocating a shift from anthropocentrism to eco-consciousness leading towards an earth-centered orientation) and Lawrence Buell (suggesting the legitimacy of non-human environment as co-participant paving a processual sense of environment), the paper will analyze how Detha’s tales critique anthropocentrism, highlight human-nature interdependence and reimagine folktales as eco-tales. Keywords: Environment; eco-criticism; oral folktales; desert ecology; indigenous knowledge