Himalayan Buddhism as Human Geological Agency: Rethinking the Novelty of "the Anthropocene"

Abstract

This article uses a Himalayan Buddhist lens to critically interrogate a fundamental premise of "the Anthropocene"---that the epoch commemorates a "newfound" capacity of humans to mobilise Earth forces. Rather, Himalayan Buddhism has long held that humans wield geological agency, mobilised through relationships with territorial landscape deities, which inflict severe weather in retaliation for human moral infractions. Offering an alternative model of anthropogenic climate change, Buddhist and Indigenous lifeworlds challenge Western convictions that "the Anthropocene" is a novel planetary epoch. Since the term has gained a vibrant discursive life beyond geology, its cultural assumptions---rather than biophysical thresholds---are primarily evaluated, revealing an extension of Eurocentric colonial logic into this new planetary chapter. Alternatively, I suggest the Himalayan Buddhist term "kawa nyampa" (degenerate era) better encapsulates our transition towards environmental breakdown. There was no need to "invent" the Anthropocene as a new epoch of thought---it had long already existed.