Producing Krishna’s Abode in Times of Climate Change: ISKCON-Ecological Imagination in Krishna Valley (Hungary)

Abstract

This article investigates the relevance of selected and adapted representations of Krishna from the broader ISKCON tradition for sustainable and self-sufficient practices within Krishna Valley. Krishna Valley is an ISKCON community established in 1993 in the remote areas of Hungary, and it covers 300 hectares. As a self-sufficient and sustainable community, it is part of the Global Environmental Network, and as an ISKCON community, it belongs to the global movement of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The synchronic interconnections of Krishna Valley as an ecovillage and as a religious place intertwine in the same place. In this article, Krishna Valley serves as an explanatory case study to investigate the relevance of ISKCON religious representations for ecological imagination: the process of perceiving relationships through the use of metaphors, images, narratives, symbols, and sematic frames that are central to and constitutive of human ecological thinking. This study uses two units of analysis (cow service and water management) to explore how in Krishna Valley ecological imagination takes shape in the interaction between local sustainable and self-sufficient practices and specific religious representations that are part of the ISKCON tradition. By looking at how the community interprets and treats cows and water pollution from a religious and environmental perspective, this case study answers the question of how ecovillages might benefit from religion-based ecological imagination for their sustainable livelihoods.

1. Introduction

On 18 November 2022, I joined a digital workshop by the ISKCON Environmental Initiative (IEI). Representatives of ISKCON—the International Society for Krishna Consciousness—from all over the world participated in this first workshop organized by the IEI. One of the presenters was Ramesh Goel, who is a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Utah. His presentation started with information about the current global situation of water pollution, and he explained how (Hindu) temples contribute to pollution through their production of solid waste, wastewater, and greenhouse gases. Then, he gave some high-standing examples of self-sufficient and sustainable ISKCON ecovillages that he had visited: Govardhan Ecovillage (India) and Krishna Valley (Hungary). He explained how the people who live in those communities aim to live a simple life that is beneficial for Mother Nature: they barely use electricity and use traditional ways of water management.

The contribution of Ramesh Goel was not limited to practical examples and information about pollution and sustainability, and how devotees should improve the temple practices, as he also referred to stories of the Hindu deity Krishna. For example, in his explanation of the water management of ecovillages, he quoted a verse from the Bhagavad Gita, which is one of the key scriptures that is used within ISKCON. According to the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu deity Krishna assumed the role of charioteer of the warrior Arjuna. Bit by bit, Krishna reveals to Arjuna who he really is: the supreme god. In one of the verses, Krishna explains his true nature as the supreme being who is part of the universe. In that verse, Krishna presents himself as the essence of earth’s waters: “O Arjuna—everything emanates from me, in bodies of water, I am the ocean; in flowing rivers, I am Ganges; I am the taste of water” (ISKCON Environmental Initiative Workshop 2022).

The above “use” of the devotees’ belief that Krishna is immanent in nature for contemporary environmental purposes is an example of ecological imagination that employs religious repertoires. Ecological imagination was coined in 2010 by Steven Fesmire to point to the process of perceiving relationships through the use of metaphors, images, narratives, symbols, and sematic frames that are central to and constitutive of human ecological thinking (Fesmire 2010, p. 183). Ecological imagination has practical implications as well, including relational framing, which encourages people to act in responsible ways. The particular framing of waterbodies as being imbued with Krishna has significant implications for how to deal with water pollution in the present.

My participation in the digital IEI workshop awakened my interest in ISKCON ecovillages. In the past three years, I have visited several ISKCON ecovillages: Radhadesh in Belgium, Krishna Valley in Hungary, and Govardhan Ecovillage in India. For this article, I have selected Krishna Valley as a case study to explore the relevance of religious representations as part of ecological imagination for sustainable livelihoods in ecovillages. Krishna Valley was established in 1993 in the remote areas of Hungary, and it covers 300 hectares. As a self-sufficient and sustainable ecovillage, it is part of the Global Environmental Network, and as an ISKCON community, it is part of the global International Society for Krishna Consciousness. ISKCON is an international branch of Gaudiya Vaishnavism that was founded by Prabhupada (1896–1977) in 1966 to spread Krishna consciousness to the West. It has its roots in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, which was established in the early sixteenth century by the Indian saint Chaitanya (Burt 2023, pp. 1–2). It focuses on bhakti (devotion) to the Hindu deity Krishna. Krishna Valley, as both an ecofarm and an ISKCON spiritual center, is a place where synchronic interconnections (Knott 2009, p. 156) to those international networks intertwine.

Krishna Valley serves in this article as an explanatory case study to illustrate how ecological imagination takes shape in the interaction between local sustainable and self-sufficient practices and specific religious representations that are part of ISKCON. In this article, I use cow service and water management as units of analysis to explore the relevance of selected representations that are part of the broader ISKCON tradition to the environmentally friendly engagement with and care for the local landscape by ISKCON members. To disclose this dynamic, I use a material religion approach that is based on the assumption that things, their use, their valuation, and their appeal are not something added to religion, but rather inextricable from it (Meyer et al. 2010, p. 209). In this article, I pay specific attention to the outward forms and practices in Krishna Valley as they are constitutive of the ecological imagination of ISKCON members.

The primary data for this article was collected in Krishna Valley during a site visit in 2024. In addition to the researcher-generated data (notes of observations, participation, and pictures), Krishna Valley members have published three books on their environmental initiatives: Beszélgetések az önellátásról: A biogasdálkodás és az ökologikus életmód alapjai (Conversations about self-sufficiency: the basics of organic farming and ecological lifestyle). The books (volumes one, two, and three) were published in 2016, 2023, and 2023, respectively. I extensively refer to those books in this article. Krishna Valley also offers an extensive website on which they share their religious and environmental initiatives. I also use these “documents” for my analysis.

Section 2 of this article introduces my theoretical framework related to imagination, religion, and environmentalism. Section 3 of the article introduces Krishna Valley and places this ISKCON community within the larger context of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Section 4 analyses how the ISKCON ecological imagination takes shape in the interaction between selected Krishna representations and local livelihood practices. In that section, I focus on the cow protection program and water management in Krishna Valley. Section 5 discusses what religious repertoires have to offer to ecological imagination in general and the environmental ethics that are practiced in ecovillages in particular.

2. Imagination, Religion, and Environmentalism

To investigate the relevance of selected representations of Krishna from the broader ISKCON tradition for sustainable and self-sufficient practices within Krishna Valley, I introduce here how imagination relates to practice.

Imagination is key to the work of Paul Ricoeur, who discusses the concept from a philosophical point of view. In “Imagination in Discourse and Action” (Ricoeur 1993), Ricoeur relates the philosophy of imagination to the theory of metaphor. Similar to poetic discourse, he writes that imagining “allows our deep-seated insertion in the life-world to emerge; it allows the ontological tie uniting our being to other beings and to Being to be articulated” (Ricoeur 1993, p. 124). Understanding imagining as “seeing as” thus helps us to perceive our relationships in the world in other ways. Although ideology extensively relies on social imagery, imagination also has the potential to take our actions in new directions (Ricoeur 1993, pp. 122, 132). Utopia is an example of imaginative practice that challenges mainstream social imagery. Although the environmental crisis was never addressed in Ricoeur’s oeuvre, several of his ideas resonate well with recent publications on environmentalism in the humanities (Vendra 2026, pp. 163–64). Following on from my brief introduction to the concept of imagination as part of Ricoeur’s work, I here continue to set out how imagination and utopia are connected to contemporary theories on environmentalism and how that relates to some ritual and religious study perspectives.

In 2010, Steven Fesmire published his ideas on ecological imagination. By ecological imagination, he meant the process of perceiving relationships through the use of metaphors, images, narratives, symbols, and sematic frames that are central to and constitutive of human ecological thinking. Ecological imagination is, first and foremost, relational imagination: it is about perceiving the relationships that constitute an object (Fesmire 2010, pp. 183–84). As a cognitive process, Fesmire argues that ecological imagination is a form of mental simulation that is “shaped by our embodied interaction with the social and physical world and structured by projective mental habits like metaphors, images, and narratives” (Fesmire 2010, p. 186). Ecological imagination is, for Fesmire, thus embodied and emplaced. It has the power to direct our individual and collective practices (Fesmire 2010, pp. 201–3).

Imagination is informed by and shapes our interactions with the social and physical world. The religious studies scholar Kim Knott mentions how religion plays a role in the imagination of places as sacred places. Continuing on Henri Lefebvre’s triad of space production, she argues that so-called spaces of representation “overlay” the physical space with the imagination that is provided, for instance, by religions (Knott 2015, p. 37). Religions thus offer narratives, metaphors, and symbols to practice “seeing as”. Knott refers to the sacred landscape imagination of Hindus to illustrate the interaction between extensive religious imagination related to spaces of representation, on the one hand, and the ritual production of space within geographical locales, on the other hand (Knott 2015, p. 13). Diana Eck explains how, for Hindus, mythology and topography are constitutive of imagined landscapes. Imagined landscapes are not “fantasies”: the imagined landscapes are the most powerful landscapes in which Hindus live (Eck 2012, p. 32). India’s landscape, as she proposes, is experienced as a lived landscape in two ways: (1) the mountains, forests, rivers, and villages are linked to stories of gods and heroes. For Hindus, the land bears traces of gods, and every place has its story. (2) India’s landscape is also a lived landscape through the rituals of devotees. Hindus visit places throughout India to fulfill a vow, to perform rites related to important life-cycle events, or to have darshan (“viewing”)—an opportunity to see a sacred place (Eck 2012, p. 9). The imagined landscape, as Eck explains, is primarily constituted by the rituals of millions of pilgrims (Eck 2012, p. 5).

The practice of pilgrimage and the rituals performed by devotees at those sites connect the sacred sites in a sacred geography. The sacred sites are linked, duplicated, and multiplicated in the landscape (Eck 2012, p. 5). Individual sacred places are connected with other sites that are similar in kind. The connection of one site with another is described by Knott as the synchronic interconnection of places: “[…] those real and imagined co-existing sites to which our place is connected by the movement of people and capital, the flow of communication and ideas” (Knott 2009, p. 156). Places, and sacred places in particular, also have a diachronic extensiveness. This means that they cross temporal boundaries and connect through time (Knott 2009, p. 156). The diachronic extensiveness of sacred places aligns with the first notion mentioned by Eck, regarding seeing India’s landscape as a lived landscape that links the present to the past through stories of gods and heroes. This dynamic, as I explain in this article, is key to the ecological imagination as practiced in Krishna Valley. I conclude this theoretical section by explaining how ecovillages function as countercultures, as they particularly focus on environmental ethics.

Michael Northcott discusses in Place, Ecology and the Sacred: The Moral Geography of Sustainable Communities (Northcott 2015) the reciprocity of human behavior and the environment in the specific context of environmental ethics. He argues that in contemporary Western society, morality is increasingly displaced from local cultures and geographic contexts. Morality is “[…] characterized by both Kantian and utilitarian philosophers as constituted by the promotion of rules that govern the interaction of autonomous human agents, rather than as an ethos or way of life that arises naturally in the context of relationships of care and nurture […]” (Northcott 2015, p. 158). The environmental crisis challenges displaced morality, and in line with communitarian philosophy, environmental ethics proposes the idea that morality evolves in particular cultural, biological, and relational contexts. Northcott states that “[…] the places where people reside, the living creatures and the landscape, as well as the built environment, which surround them, play a significant role in the nurture and development of morally sensitive individuals” (Northcott 2015, p. 159). A movement mentioned by Northcott that practices this insight is the Transition Towns movement that emerged in 2005 in England in response to the declining availability of conventional oil and the problem of climate change (Northcott 2015, p. 152). Transition Town is a social movement that offers a place-based approach to recover a local economy in which people engage in the local production of food, personal care, and entertainment instead of in global networks.

Ecovillages are examples of communities in which people deeply engage with the local environment and practice self-sufficiency and sustainability within a local community. The exact locality where sustainable practices take place greatly matters. Steven Silvern and Edward Davis argue that “[i]deas and beliefs are made consequential in the here and now of constructing places and landscapes. We not only live out all our lives in places that are dependent on natural systems, but we transform those places through our lived practices, which are political, economic and cultural (Cresswell 2004).”(Silvern and Davis 2021, p. 5). The (Christian) theologian Larry Rasmussen speaks of “anticipatory communities” to frame the recent experimental communities that practice environmental ethics that oppose mainstream society. Rasmussen writes that “[a]nticipatory communities are home places where it is possible to reimagine worlds and reorder possibilities, places where new or renewed practices give focus to an ecological and postindustrial way of life” (Rasmussen 2013, p. 227). The concept of an anticipatory community has been taken up by two scholars who have conducted in-depth research at two ISKCON ecovillages (Fici 2015; Valpey 2020). I engage with their perceptions of ISKCON ecovillages as anticipatory communities in more detail in Section 4 of this article.

3. Krishna Valley and ISKCON

Krishna Valley in Hungary is part of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). The ISKCON is the main international current of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Gaudiya Vaishnavism was initiated by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1533). He lived in West Bengal and was a devotee (bhakta) of Krishna and his consort Radha. His devotion to Krishna and Radha was considered so outstanding that Chaitanya himself became venerated in several branches of Gaudiya Vaishnavism as an incarnation of Krishna and Radha (Sarbadhikary 2013, p. 114).

In the 16th century, bhakti had become the most dominant form of Hindu expression. Bhakti is a concept to denote “[…] a complex of religious attitudes and practices predicated on total devotion to a supreme deity with whom the devotee (*bhakta) has a personal relationship” (Johnson 2010, p. 51). The bhakti of Gaudiya Vaishnavism focuses primarily on the Hindu deity Krishna.

One of the central textual resources for Krishna devotion in Gaudiya Vaishnavism is the ninth-century Bhagavata Puraṇa that provides both extensive accounts of Krishna bhakti by early bhaktas as well as narratives of Krishna’s early life on earth (in India). Krishna as Gopala Krishna (cowherd Krishna) is believed to have performed his lila (divine play) among the cowherds in the region of Vrindavan. The Bhagavata Puraṇa includes stories of Krishna’s playfulness as a child among the cowherd community, like stealing butter and hiding the clothes of female cowherders (Herbert 2022, p. 122; Johnson 2010, p. 49).

The ISKCON is an international branch of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. It was started by Prabhupada (1896–1977), who was born in Calcutta. Following Chaitanya’s vision that Krishna bhakti should be spread all over the world, Prabhupada’s guru (spiritual teacher) gave him the task of translating Gaudiya teachings into English. Praphupada took his proselytizing efforts to a higher level and traveled to New York to spread Krishna consciousness. His message resonated well with the search for spirituality that was part of the Western counterculture of that time. In 1966, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness was launched in the USA as an international movement. According to Angela Burt, most ISKCON members self-identify as Gaudiya Vaishnavas or Vaishnavas instead of Hindus (Burt 2023, pp. 1–4). Therefore, I will refer to them in this article as ISKCON members. However, I do use the concept “Hindu” when I refer to the general Hindu practices that I employ as a theoretical lens in this article.

Prabhupada also had a vision to materialize Krishna devotion within the landscape. In 1968, he posed a rhetorical question in one of his letters: “You have New York, New England, and so many ‘New’ duplicates of European countries in the USA; why not import New Vrindaban in your country?” (H. Dasa 2008). In 1968, Prabhupada and his devotees started New Vrindavan in West Virginia. New Vrindavan started as a self-sufficient farming community as well as a center for Krishna devotion that made Prabhupada’s ideal of “simple living and high thinking” very tangible in the landscape (S. Dasa n.d.). As Whitney Sanford writes, “the devotees who built this community lived austere lives and spent their days farming, chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, and ritually serving Krishna” (Sanford 2015, p. 290). Food and farming, she argues, are very central to the ISKCON’s utopian ideas of Vrindavan that idealize pastoral life (Sanford 2015, p. 290).

Krishna Valley in Hungary is also a product of the ISKCON’s effort to (internationally) reproduce Krishna’s pastoral realm. Krishna Valley is an ISKCON ecovillage based in Hungary (Eastern Europe). After World War II, Hungary became a communist country that was highly influenced by the Soviet Union. From the fall of communism in 1989 onwards, Hungary developed a more democratic system. This change had an immense economic impact; due to opening up to the international market, parts of the Hungarian economy collapsed (Richter 2019).

A global development that gained a foothold in Hungary in the early 1990s was the ecovillages. Judit Farkas—who has conducted extensive research on ecovillages in Hungary—describes how, in Hungary, in the 1990s, several ecovillages emerged: some of them were established as part of still functioning settlements, others replaced extinct or almost extinct villages, and others were established on the border of existing settlements (Farkas 2021a, p. 386). Similar to the Transition Town movement that I have referred to in Section 2, the ecovillagers wanted to adapt as much as possible to the local environment and become sustainable and self-sufficient. Examples of sustainable developments within the Hungarian ecovillages that Farkas mentions are chemical-free farming, the use of environmentally friendly technologies, the development of waste management and wastewater treatment, and the use of renewable energy sources (Farkas 2021a, p. 384).

In 1993, a group of between 20 and 25 ISKCON members bought a plot of land of 120 hectares on the outskirts of Somogyvámos (Kun 2016, p. 40). Somogyvámos is located in an area that is socially and economically less developed compared to some other areas in Hungary. The small village is relatively isolated. Therefore, it was comparatively inexpensive to buy a plot of land in that area (Farkas 2021c, p. 229). The ISKCON members developed the land into an oil-independent, sustainable, and self-sufficient community. For this, they started to grow trees for firewood and cultivate grain and crops (Kun 2016, pp. 40–41).

Krishna Valley is exemplary for so-called low-tech developments: the community uses mechanical agricultural and household tools over motorized tools. Their way of life revitalizes the traditional Hungarian peasant way of life. The examples that Farkas mentions are “milking, well cleaning, a good scythe and its proper use and maintenance, stalk cutter, spading fork, or thistle cutter, or even the preparation of the breakfast staple cocoa roll (grinding the flour, kneading, and baking in an oven)”(Farkas 2021a, p. 390).

At present, Krishna Valley covers an area of approximately 325 hectares, and the community consists of approximately 150 people. There are also around 100 people who are attached to Krishna Valley who live in Somogyvámos. There are 57 buildings in Krishna Valley; there is an orchard and a botanical garden, a guesthouse, a school, and a vegetarian restaurant. Also, around 70 cows and oxen live in Krishna Valley (“Information” n.d.). The cows reside in the so-called Cow Protection Centre (“Welcome to Krishna Valley” n.d.). Since the ISKCON considers cow protection as central to their ideology, the cow protection center was already established at the very start of Krishna Valley in 1994.

One of the problems that the community faced when they started cultivating the area was water pollution. Hungary has a very high level of nitrate in the water, which is mainly caused by fertilizers and careless wastewater treatment. In the 1990s, the percentage of nitrate in the groundwater of Somogyvámos was 20–30% above the maximum of 50 mg/L. It took the ISKCON members between 10 and 15 years to purify the water in the area, mainly through not using fertilizers and through good wastewater management. For their drinking water, the ISKCON members dug wells. In 2005, they had a well for every second property in Krishna Valley and most of the groundwater was clean enough to drink.

Farkas explains in detail how the idealization of the traditional Hungarian peasant way of life is central to several of the Hungarian ecovillages (Farkas 2021a, p. 388). This is also the case with Krishna Valley. Since the 2000s, Krishna Valley has started to promote itself actively as an ecovillage (Farkas 2021b). In the article “Eco Valley or New Vraja Dham? Competing Emic Interpretations of the Hungarian Krishna Valley” Farkas illustrates with many quotes from her interviews with ISKCON members that Krishna consciousness is more prominent to them than environmental ethics (Farkas 2021b). The villagers themselves and the people from other villages see, however, that the ISKCON ideology is very relevant to their sustainable practices (Farkas 2021c). What I illustrate in this article is how the selected Krishna representations that are part of the broader ISKCON tradition are central to shaping the self-sufficient and sustainable practices in Krishna Valley. From a material religion perspective, I specifically look at the outward forms. Prabhupada also called for an extensive materialization of Krishna devotion within the ISKCON communities. Therefore, I start here with an introduction to the trails and temples in Krishna Valley.

3.1. Trails in Krishna Valley

The multiple trails in Krishna Valley provide an interesting perspective on the intersection between the selected representations that are part of the broader ISKCON tradition and the environmentally friendly engagement with and care for the local landscape in Hungary by ISKCON members. Those trials are materialized in the landscape by panels that provide information and particular ISKCON interpretations about the built structures and natural features.

Based on their different style and content, the panels can be divided into three categories. I briefly introduce them here.

The first collection of panels constitutes the Bhagavad Gita trail. The 18 panels of the trail contain quotations from the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is a key Hindu text that is approximately 2000 years old. Krishna presents himself in the text as the supreme god to whom people should devote their lives (Johnson 2010, pp. 47–48). The quotations from the Bhagavad Gita that are part of the trail aim to contribute to the devotees’ spiritual life, their ethics, and their personal development (“1 Bhagavad-Gītā Trail” n.d.). The eighteen panels of this trail scarcely make a direct reference to the local environment.

A second collection of panels constitutes the so-called ecological learning path. Those six panels provide information from an ecological point of view about the area. These panels are not placed along the main road but at various places in the landscape where they provide an explanation of how the community members engage with the local environment. The panels were placed around 2013 (“2 Renewable Energies” n.d.). The panels mention six self-sufficient and/or sustainable practices in Krishna Valley: (1) the journey of water in Krishna Valley; (2) renewable energies; (3) cow protection and ox power; (4) sustainable agriculture; (5) horticulture, organic gardening; and (6) the fruit orchard.

The final panels are placed next to fourteen red Indian-style pavilions (see Figure 1). These pavilions can be found at different locations in Krishna Valley. They mark fourteen holy places of Krishna, mainly related to Krishna as Gopala Krishna, who performed his manifested lila among the cowherd community in Vrindavan. Some of the pavilions are placed next to outstanding natural features such as trees and waterbodies. The panels then explain some stories about Krishna and how the landscape should be imagined as a Hindu sacred landscape, which can be seen in Vrindavan in particular. This trail also encourages visitors to practice devotion by circumambulating the pavilions and (if they are placed close to a waterbody) dropping some water on their heads to receive the blessings of those places. The panel of one of the first pavilions (located near a waterbody) explains that the site is the Vishrama ghat (steps leading towards a waterbody) located near the Yamuna (a river in India). Krishna bathed himself there after he killed the cruel king Kamsa. The panel provides instructions for the visitors to wash their face and hands in the water of the Yamuna or sprinkle three drops of water on their head while they should pray for inner peace and purity (“Krisna Völgy Vörös Pavilonjai” n.d.).

Figure 1. A red pavilion in Krishna Valley that marks a holy place in Krishna Valley. The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

The three collections of panels illustrate how Krishna Valley is part of several larger networks. They bear witness to the synchronic interconnections of the place. The ecological learning path illustrates Krishna Valley’s membership as an ecovillage of the Global Environmental Network. The Bhagavad Gita trail and the fourteen pavilions illustrate that Krishna Valley is part of the ISKCON movement. The pavilions with the panels depicting stories of Krishna’s life mark Krishna Valley as a pilgrimage site and as a New Vraj-dhama (dwelling place) in Hungary.

3.2. The Main Temple in Krishna Valley

The main road along which most of the panels are placed leads towards the central compound on which—amongst other buildings—the temple is located. The foundation stone of this temple was laid already in 1994 (Kun 2016, p. 41). The temple houses a statue of Krishna and his consort Radha (see Figure 2). For the devotees, the images are the embodiment of the divine. Therefore, they pay them their utmost respect by worshiping them five times a day (“What are the darshan times?” n.d.). The puja, or worship, includes the offering of food and candles. In the temple, the devotees also evoke Krishna by chanting the mantra Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare.

Figure 2. Krishna (left) and Radha (right) in the center of the ISKCON temple in Krishna Valley. The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

The temple contains colorful murals of Krishna’s pastimes in Vrindavan. It shows Krishna as a child with his foster mother, who sees the entire universe unfolding when she looks into Krishna’s mouth (Figure 3). This picture shows an abode in the sky where she embraces Krishna while sitting next to a cow.

Figure 3. The mural from the ISKCON temple in Krishna Valley. The mural shows Krishna’s foster-mother, Yashoda, who sees the universe unfolding in Krishna’s mouth. The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

Other murals show Krishna dancing with the gopis (female cowherders), Krishna swinging with his consort Radha, and several drawings of the activities of the peasants. In general, the temple murals highly idealize the Indian peasant culture, showing green pastures, flowers, trees, milk, garlands of flowers, peacocks, deer, cows, cowherds, fruits and vegetables. One picture shows Krishna milking the cows (see Figure 4) and another one shows Krishna playing his flute while he walks between the (garlanded) cows.

Figure 4. The mural from the ISKCON temple in Krishna Valley. The mural shows Krishna milking a cow. The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

With specific references to the materializations in Krishna Valley’s landscape, I analyze in the following sections how the interaction of selected representations that are part of the ISKCON tradition with two of the key sustainable and self-sufficient practices in Krishna Valley shapes the ecological imagination at Krishna Valley.

4. “Cow Service” and Water Management as Practices of ISKCON Ecological Imagination

In this section, I illustrate how, in Krishna Valley, some general Hindu practices as well as specific ISKCON thoughts and practices are reworked in the light of climate change and become part of the sustainable engagement of the ISKCON members with the local environment. With a focus on (religious) materializations in the landscape, I offer an expansion to the in-depth research on Krishna Valley that has been conducted by Farkas. The selected units of analysis of my research are (1) cow service and (2) water management. I place my findings of ecological imagination about water management and cow service in Krishna Valley against the backdrop of some general Hindu perspectives on water and cows that are raised in the context of contemporary Hindu environmentalism and explain what additional insights about the ISKCON ecological imagination my specific research perspective offers.

4.1. Cow Service as Producing Krishna’s Abode

Similar to other ISKCON ecovillages, Krishna Valley has a cow protection center that is referred to as goshala or cow (go) shelter (shala). Providing protection to cows means that the ISKCON members care for cows, bulls, and calves in an animal-friendly manner. They consider it their duty to protect the cows against the cold, the heat, and parasites. They do not sell or slaughter their cows (Kun 2023, pp. 83, 216).

The three books about Krishna Valley provide two noteworthy religious interpretations of the ISKCON cow protection program in Krishna Valley. The first one is that cows are Krishna’s favorite animal. Thus, it is for the pleasure of Krishna that cows should be taken care of (Kun 2023, p. 212). The second one is that cow protection expresses the gratitude of the devotee to the products and labor that cows and oxen provide them with. The ISKCON members see it as the dharma (duty) of cows to give birth to calves and provide milk and manure (Kun 2023, pp. 216–17). In Krishna Valley, the cow milk is used to make dairy products, ranging from Parmesan to ghee (clarified butter) and from ice cream to yogurt. The milk and dairy products are also used as part of the offerings to Krishna. The oxen help them with agriculture.

On the way to the goshala, one passes the panel from the ecological learning path that provides an explanation of how cows and oxen are employed in Krishna Valley and how the ISKCON members take care of the cows and oxen (“3 Cow Protection and Ox Power” n.d., also see Figure 5). From some distance, the goshala at Krishna Valley resembles a regular cowshed, but the inner walls of the cowshed are extensively decorated with framed pictures of Krishna and his consort Radha (Figure 6). A canvas at the entrance explains some details of why service to cows (go-seva) is beneficial for people’s devotional life. With reference to Hindu religious scriptures—the canvas mentions, for instance, the Vishnu Dharmottara Purana—it is explained that “cow service”, like scratching a cow and removing parasites from the cow’s body, removes the results of a person’s sinful actions (negative karma). By feeding a cow, one accumulates good religious merit. It also pleases Krishna when cows are treated in a good way (“Go-Seva” n.d.).

Figure 5. Panel three (“livestock farming and agricultural activities”) of the ecological learning path in Krishna Valley that explains cow protection and ox power. The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

Figure 6. The cowshed or goshala in Krishna Valley, decorated with picture frames of Krishna. The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

One general Hindu representation of cows that is frequently referred to for contemporary Hindu environmental ethics is viewing the cow as a sacred animal. In “Animal Ethics and Ecology in Classical India: Reflections on a Moral Tradition,” Sridhar and Bilimoria illustrate, with references to a variety of Hindu literature, that the deification of certain animals (and also the demonization of others) is one Hindu perspective on how animals are perceived (Sridhar and Bilimoria 2016, p. 307). To refer to the Hindu perception of the cow as a sacred animal, Kenneth R. Valpey has coined the concept bovinity (Valpey 2020, p. 1). The studies of ISKCON ecovillages often focus on the sacrality of the cow—sometimes extended to “nature” in general—as paramount to their environmental ethics. I briefly mention here some of the main insights of studies that have been conducted on environmental ethics in ISKCON ecovillages.

As previously noted, many ecovillages that have emerged in the past decades practice sustainable and self-sufficient communal living. Christopher Fici and Kenneth Valpey apply the concept of anticipatory communities to ISKCON ecovillages that they have studied (including Govardhan Ecovillage in India and Krishna Valley and Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir). Fici writes that honoring the earth or considering the earth as sacred is central to the eco-practices in Govardhan Ecovillage (Fici 2015). Danielle Lella Bartolone argues that at Govardhan Ecovillage, bhakti, or loving devotional service to Krishna, includes loving care for the environment (Bartolone 2019, pp. 11, 61). Cow care is most frequently mentioned as a self-sufficient practice in the ISKCON ecovillages through which devotees express bhakti. Valpey mentions cow care as central to the environmental ethics as practiced in the ISKCON ecovillages; since cows belong to Krishna, they are considered part of the community (thus extending the idea of community beyond the human species), and by serving cows, people also serve Krishna (Valpey 2020, pp. 220–21). Tamas Lestar, who has researched food practices as eco-spiritual practices among ISKCON members, also pays extensive attention to the treatment of cows in Krishna Valley (Lestar 2018, pp. 189–98). His aim is to show how, in the communities, a surrounding architecture is created that encourages sustainable practices that are spiritually infused (Lestar 2018, p. 180). Lestar provides an interesting example of the countercultural food practices in Krishna Valley. This is commensality, as opposed to the fast-food culture (Lestar 2018, p. 175). My investigation of the materialization of Krishna representations in Krishna Valley from a material religions perspective offers an in-depth understanding of the entanglement of local environmental ethics with religious repertoires as part of the ecological imagination.

When we look at how the Krishna Valley landscape is perceived, cow service is considered more than, or even different from, paying respect to the cow because of the sacred nature of the cow: cow service is also practiced as a way to produce Krishna’s abode in Krishna Valley. In Section 2, I have introduced landscape imagination as central to several Hindu devotional practices. The ISKCON has a very specific theology regarding the reproduction of sacred places that I bring in here as a relevant source to understand the ecological imagination that takes shape in Krishna Valley.

Gaudiya Vaishnavism, from which the ISKCON emerged as an international branch in the 20th century, originated in North India. The founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, Chaitanya, was a 15th-century Bengali Krishna bhakta. The theology of Gaudiya Vaishnavism was developed by six immediate followers of Chaitanya. They are referred to as Goswamis (Lords of cows, which is also used more generally for spiritual teachers who have mastered their senses). Holdrege (2023) explains how two of the six Goswamis have extensively contributed to what she refers to as the reclamation of Vraj, which is now the most famous pilgrimage site for Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Rupa Goswami (1470–1557) and Jiva Goswami (1516–1608) have identified specific geographical locations in the Vraj region (in India) based on the stories of Krishna’s life that can be found in the Puranas. Moreover, they have created an analytical framework “to support their discursive reimagining of Vraj as a bimodal domain that functions simultaneously as a geographic place in North India and as a transcendent space beyond the material space-time continuum” (Holdrege 2023, p. 62). For this, they made a division between the manifested and unmanifested lila (play) of Krishna. The former occurs in the material space-time continuum of when Krishna allegedly descended to earth. The unmanifested lila eternally continues in a transcendent dhama (abode or dwelling place). Jiva Goswami refers to this transcendent place as Krishna loka (world), with the transcendent Vraj-dhama as the most important abode within this transcendent world. Vraj-dhama is also referred to as Goloka, Gokula, Vrindavan, or Goloka-Vrindavan. The transcendent Vraj-dhama has its earthly counterpart in the Vrindavan region in North India (Holdrege 2023, pp. 64–65). When Krishna came to the earth, the abodes also allegedly descended in particular geographic places. In Vrindavan, Krishna descended to earth as a youthful cowherder and performed his manifest play with the gopas and gopis (male and female cowherders). Vrindavan and performing the Vraj yatra (pilgrimage through the Vraj region) provide devotees with access to the transcendent abode of Krishna. Due to the qualities of these places, Holdrege refers to the region (similar to Diana Eck) as a living abode (Holdrege 2023, pp. 61, 70, 83). Devotees produce through their religious practices—especially those of pilgrimage—the presence of Krishna’s eternal abode on earth.

The bhaktas of Chaitanya also developed a sacred geography in the region of his birth (West Bengal). Navadvip and Mayapur are now two central pilgrimage sites that people visit to experience the life of Chaitanya. The area houses several temples related to the life events of Chaitanya. The sacred geography of Chaitanya’s life in West Bengal also includes reproductions of sites that are known from the Vrindavan area in Central India. Sukanya Sarbadhikary writes that the sacred geography in that region includes spots that are referred to as Krishna’s bathing pond and Radha’s bathing pond, and that there is an area that is identified as Govardhan hill (Sarbadhikary 2013, p. 125). Govardhan is a hill located in the Vraj area that was allegedly lifted by Krishna to provide shelter to the villagers against thunderstorms. The pilgrimage centers of Navadvip and Mayapur are known by devotees as gupta (veiled) Vrindavan.

Prabhupada, who started the ISKCON, called explicitly for the international production of Krishna’s abode by the ISKCON members. The ISKCON members started worldwide projects of communal living to practice Prabhupada’s motto, “simple living and high thinking”, together. The ISKCON communities provide examples of how spaces of representation are produced through the practices of devotees in specific geographical locales (see Kim Knott). The practice of cow service is key to the production of Krishna’s abode. The treatment of the cows in a way that is pleasant to Krishna is part of the space of representation (the divine realm, Goloka) that overlays the geographical space. It produces Krishna’s abode on earth. The spatial relevance of cow service is also explicitly mentioned in the ISKCON Environmental Initiative:

“The ecotheological ethics and principles of creature care, protection, and rights within the Caitanya Vaishnava tradition finds a primary focus in the values and practices of go-seva, or bovine (cow/bull) care and protection. The special status of bovines is a reflection of the special relationship that cows and bulls have with Krishna in the original, eternal spiritual realm of Vrindavan and during his appearances and manifestation of Vrindavan in the material universe”.

(K. Dasa n.d.)

Keeping cows in Krishna Valley aligns well with general (Hungarian) perspectives on self-sufficiency and sustainability, which are also practiced in the ecovillages. Krishna Valley uses an additional ISKCON-based representation as part of their ecological imagination for their self-sufficient peasant way of life, in which cows play a key role. I mention two of them here.

Valpey argues that the strong connection between Krishna and cows results in Krishna Valley having a sustainable cow-friendly care program in which cows are not treated in an instrumental way. By this, he means that cows are not primarily kept for their production of dairy products because they are considered as Krishna’s and should be taken care of (Valpey 2020, pp. 218–20).

However, based on my analysis, cows play several “instrumental” roles in the devotion of the ISKCON members that also affect the ways the cows are part of their contemporary ecological imagination. Since the cow was always close to their beloved cowherder Krishna, cows provide the ISKCON members with the opportunity to practice Krishna consciousness. The general ISKCON representation is that cows create “Krishna proximity”, which is central to ecological imagination in ISKCON ecovillages. The global ecovillages paradigm that highlights the relevance of sustainable and self-sufficient practices places the relationships that ISKCON villagers have with cows—one primarily based on devotion—in a new light. To coin this relationship with cows as part of ecological imagination, the IEI’s ecotheology has introduced the concept of eco-bhakti. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna shows the warrior Arjuna the way of devotion (bhakti-yoga) as the main way for his devotees to connect to God (in this case, Krishna himself). In the ISKCON ecovillages, cow care is framed as a way of devotion (bhakti). As a part of ecological imagination, this representation of a devotional relationship with the cows provides a relevant layer of meaning to the use of cows as part of a self-sufficient way of life in the ISKCON ecovillages.

A related devotional perspective on the relationships between humans and cows that shapes the ecological imagination in Krishna Valley is that cows are central to Krishna’s divine abode, Goloka (the divine realm of cows). The ISKCON members believe that their main deity, Krishna, descended as a cowherder in Vrindavan, and with his descent, the abode Goloka also came to the earth. The mural that shows Krishna’s foster mother, Yashoda, looking into Krishna’s mouth, visualizes this connection of the transcendent and immanent abode of Krishna with the cows. Central to the ISKCON ideology is the idea that Krishna’s abode can be produced in the present. Prabhupada called for the global reproduction of Vrindavan, whereas landscape imagination is often referred to in connection with the popular practice of Hindu pilgrimage; the sustainable and self-sufficient practices in Krishna Valley also contribute to the production of Krishna’s abode. Cows grazing on pastures are natural features in the Hungarian landscape of Krishna’s realm. Cow service is a spatial practice through which devotees produce Krishna’s Goloka and simultaneously participate in his realm. This dynamic is further explored with reference to the water management in Krishna Valley.

4.2. Fighting Water Pollution as Imitatio Dei

Similar to the cow protection program, the ecological learning path provides visitors to Krishna Valley with an introduction to water management. The panel’s heading speaks of “the Journey of Water in Krishna Valley.” It explains how Krishna Valley became self-sufficient in its drinking water management. It took the ISKCON members in Krishna Valley 15 years to purify the water and to remove the chemicals from it. Krishna Valley has a tube-well that is more than 300 m. They also collect rainwater for watering plants, for which they use a drip tube system. Their wastewater is purified through reed bed sewage (“The Journey of Water” n.d.).

Examples of Krishna Valley’s water management that are visible in Krishna Valley’s landscape are the wells and ponds (see Figure 7). The wells are primarily used to provide the residents of Krishna Valley with drinking water. Throughout Krishna Valley, ponds are also created. The conversations about Krishna Valley that Kun has noted down provide multiple instructions on the vegetation that should be used to create the ponds (Kun 2023, p. 134).

Figure 7. One of the ponds in Krishna Valley. The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

One relevant remark on water in those conversations is that water is essential to life. Also, water is readily available in multiple ways, including rainwater, groundwater, and surface water. It seems for that reason water is often taken for granted, and the quality is not well maintained. In Krishna Valley, the people consider it their duty to care for water and to protect it (Kun 2016, pp. 125–26). How are the perceived relationships of the villagers of Krishna Valley with water in their vicinity imbued by selective ISKCON representations? I answer this question by focusing on one specific Krishna representation that is materialized extensively in Krishna Valley’s landscape.

One Hindu perception of water that is frequently brought forward in discussions about contemporary Hindu environmental ethics is that waterbodies are perceived as sacred. Bilimoria and Sridhar explain that in India, in the Vedic period, all kinds of water resources were considered sacred and that rivers were periodically worshiped because of their divine status (Bilimoria and Sridhar 2024, p. 197). The deification of natural phenomena does not automatically result in the proper treatment of nature in the light of climate change (Framarin 2014, pp. 1–2). On the contrary, as recent research shows, the deification of waterbodies frequently results in extensive water pollution. Ritual objects like the candles in leaf baskets that people offer to waterbodies—as, for instance, is the case with the Ganga aarti (offering of light)—highly contribute to water pollution (Roy 2025, pp. 113–16). Also, the visarjan (immersion) of festival images that are made of plaster and painted with artificial colors heavily intoxicates local waterbodies during Hindu festivals (De Koning 2023).

The representation of water as divine is also one of the ISKCON representations of water. One of the panels of the Bhagavad Gita trail in Krishna Valley refers to the immanence of Krishna in nature and elaborates on Krishna as the taste of water. It invites devotees to think about him when they drink: “The next time you drink water or anything else, remember that Kṛṣṇa is the taste of water, He is the one who quenches your thirst.” (“7 The presence of God” n.d.). The verse from the Bhagavad Gita that is quoted here (BG 7:8) is used to point to the presence of Krishna in nature, in a similar way as Ramesh Goel referred to Krishna as the essence of water in his online IEI workshop.

It seems that in confronting water pollution (in Krishna Valley), another ISKCON representation of water becomes more relevant in framing local environmental ethics. This is the representation of Krishna fighting Kaliya. The original story of Krishna fighting the multiple-headed serpent Kaliya that poisons the Yamuna River can be found in Bhagavata Purana 10.1.16 (Johnson 2010, p. 165). This story is materialized extensively in Krishna Valley in the temple and in part of the red pavilion trail.

The category of red pavilion panels that aim to bring about Krishna Valley as an ISKCON pilgrimage place contains a panel about Krishna’s fight with Kaliya (see Figure 8). This story is used in the ISKCON ecotheology as an example of why one should fight against water pollution. I briefly provide the story of Krishna and Kaliya here, based on the information provided on the panel. In general, this story from the Bhagavata Purana is an extensive part of the ISKCON iconography (see Figure 9).

Figure 8. Panel “Kaliya ghata” next to the main water stream running through Krishna Valley. Itthat explains the story of Krishna and Kaliya and refers to the spot as Kaliya ghata (steps leading towards the waterbody where Kaliya allegedly resided) The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

Figure 9. The mural from the ISKCON temple in Krishna Valley. The mural shows Krishna fighting the demon serpent Kaliya. The picture was taken by the author, Krishna Valley, 3 July 2024.

One day, Krishna and his cowherder friends roam with their cattle on the banks of the Yamuna River. After drinking the water of the Yamuna, Krishna’s friends and the cattle fell unconscious. Krishna learns that the Yamuna is poisoned by a demon serpent named Kaliya. After he revives his companions, Krishna jumps into the water to fight Kaliya. He conquers the multiheaded serpent demon, who then leaves the Yamuna.

The panel also provides an interpretation of the story and instructions for devotees: Kaliya symbolizes bad traits (malice, cruelty, and envy). Devotees who pray to Krishna and recite his name are cleansed from such negative traits. Also, they are invited to wash their hands and face in the waters of the Yamuna or sprinkle water on their heads while praying (“Kāliya Ghāṭa” n.d.). The stream running through Krishna Valley is equated with the river the Yamuna in India.

In the (general) ISKCON ecotheology, the story of Krishna and Kaliya is referred to as an example of how Krishna protects the environment (K. Dasa n.d.). As part of the ecological imagination, this story provides a very specific perception of the perceived relationship of God with water. The water of the Yamuna River is venomous in the story through the inhabitation of the malevolent (towards humans and other parts of nature) serpent Kaliya. The God Krishna defeats Kaliya, and the water becomes drinkable again.

As part of the ecological imagination, this story provides an interesting perspective on the water management in Krishna Valley. The “journey of water” in Krishna Valley was a long way to purify the highly polluted water. Krishna fighting Kaliya provides a role model for the ISKCON members: in their efforts to fight water pollution in Hungary, they imitate God (Imitatio Dei). In doing so, they contribute to the production of Krishna Valley as Krishna’s abode, similar to the act of cow service, and the stream of purified water running through Krishna Valley becomes the Yamuna. Through their extensive water management, the ISKCON members in Krishna Valley are thus able to reproduce Krishna’s abode in the Hungarian landscape.

The representation of water in the story of Krishna and Kaliya as explicitly poisonous is more relevant to shaping the human–water relationships as part of the ecological imagination in Krishna Valley than perceiving water as divine. The Krishna–Kaliya representation, as adapted to the ecological imagination, poses a strong moral appeal to change human–water relationships and to actively fight contemporary water pollution.

The landscape features in Krishna Valley, including streams, ponds, wells, murals, and panels, are relevant to understanding the close entanglement of environmental ethics and religious representations as part of the localized ecological imagination.

5. Discussion

Perceiving nature as “sacred” is one ecological imagination that is frequently brought forward in discussions about how sustainability initiatives might benefit from religions. However, this perception does not directly result in care for nature. I have illustrated that the ISKCON offers some other relevant representations that are beneficial for sustainable livelihoods.

One central idea in the ISKCON ecovillages is that the members should contribute to the production of the place as a place that pleases God. The most famous divine realm of Krishna is Goloka, the realm of the cows. Therefore, keeping cows in an ISKCON ecovillage is not just a way to live off the grid. The care for cows produces the abode of Krishna as a living abode on earth through which the ISKCON members experience the proximity of Krishna. Krishna Valley is thus synchronically connected with the manifested Vrindavan in India, but more importantly, the members produce, through cow service, the transcendent/imagined abode of Krishna.

Another idea that is central to Krishna Valley and that emerged in response to problems that the ISKCON members faced with water pollution is the idea of Imitatio Dei. I have illustrated how the adaptation of the story of Krishna and Kaliya as part of the ecological imagination extensively calls for following in the footsteps of Krishna to fight pollution. While following in the footsteps of God is often related to pilgrimage, it also serves as a tool for environmental ethics.

I would like to emphasize here that the selected Krishna representations are extensively adapted when they become employed for ecological imagination. Therefore, I have used the verb “shaping” throughout the article: the ISKCON ecovillages are places where the ISKCON tradition and sustainable initiatives mutually shape each other in concrete engagement of the ISKCON members with the environment.

I have shown how ecological imagination might benefit from tapping into religious repertoires. Imagination is about “seeing as” (Ricoeur). In ecovillages, this “seeing as” is particularly relevant to perceive the relationships of the ecovillagers with their environment. Ecovillages are examples of communities in which people deeply engage with the local environment and practice self-sufficiency and sustainability within a local community. How ecovillagers perceive their relationships with the environment greatly matters to how people transform the places through their lived practices.

Using religious repertoires for ecological imagination adds relevant layers of meaning to environmental ethics. It not only focuses on responsible behavior towards the environment but also towards God. Producing God’s abode and Imitatio Dei call for active engagement with and to bring about change in a particular local environment. These representations can be extended beyond the ISKCON ecological imagination. For instance, representations one might employ to enhance people’s care for the local environment are a paradise or any garden or forest mentioned in religious stories, which is worth reproducing.

I have taken a material religion research approach in this article to study how selected religious representations relate to local sustainable and self-sufficient practices. In addition to using the material religion approach as a research angle, we learn from Krishna Valley that religious materialization in the landscape helps people to perceive and frame (“seeing as”) their sustainable and self-sufficient practices as relevant religious/devotional relationships. The religious environmental initiatives might benefit from making the spaces of representation more concrete in environments through materialization, as it provides people with relevant meaning-making frameworks.