After eco-theocide: the shift from ecological conservation to eco-theological conversation in Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain

Abstract Challenging the ontological dualism of being and thing, the article underscores the constant movement of “energy” between these two categories by reading Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain within the paradigms of New Materialism, Shakta-Tantra and an eco-theological conceptualization of “energy”. Drawing on several post-secular philosophical ideas like “ecosophy” and “cosmotheandric spirituality”, it explores the alternative, Indigenous modes of communication with and through the divine Earth, which were gradually destroyed by seductive capitalism, resulting in eco-theocide and environmental disaster. This mode of eco-theological conversation with “material” nature diverges from the discourse of sustainable “conservation” used by late capitalism to underplay the history of ecological injustice. Finally, this article also plans to situate Ghosh’s The Living Mountain within the living traditions of mountain worship prevalent in different parts of India.