In the Atharvaveda, there is a hymn called the Prithvi Sukta — the hymn to the Earth.
It is sixty-three verses of extraordinary beauty. And it begins:
Mata bhumih putro aham prithivyah. The Earth is my mother and I am her son/daughter.
Not “the Earth is a resource.” Not “the Earth is an asset.” Not even “the Earth is sacred” in a distant, ritualistic way.
The Earth is my mother.
And mothers do not need to be worshipped. They need to be listened to. They need to be cared for. They need to be protected when they are hurting.
The Prithvi Sukta asks the Earth’s forgiveness before anyone treads on her. It acknowledges that humans take from her — wood, stone, soil, water — and it asks: forgive us this taking. We know what we owe you.
This is not primitive superstition. This is ecological consciousness embedded in liturgy, maintained for thousands of years so that human beings would never forget the debt.
We forgot anyway.
Mission Dharini — the environmental initiative of Divine Care Foundation — is a remembering. Every tree planted, every program of ecological awareness, every action that slows the damage — this is a child returning to apologize to the mother. Returning to listen again. Returning to care.
The Vedas gave us a complete science of environmental relationship. We didn’t call it ecology. We called it dharma — right relationship. Right relationship with the Earth, with the waters, with the air, with the animals, with the invisible life that makes visible life possible.
We are trying to rebuild that right relationship, one small act at a time.
