Swami Finds His Mission on a Mountain

The Hindu hermit stood on his mountaintop, watching a violent hailstorm topple thick-trunked trees and send them crashing down the lower Himalayan slopes.

When followers of the 80-year-old Swami Vankhandi climbed up after the storm, they found that all the trees in his 15-acre environmental retreat were among the mountain’s plant life that escaped damage. They immediately proclaimed it a miracle.

But unlike many other Indian hermits, Swami Vankhandi, whose name means “sage of the forest,” does not claim to be a miracle worker. Rather than cloak his work in mysticism, he shares what he knows about ancient systems of medicine and nature worship and tries to teach by example that environmental protection can succeed with patience and hard work, as well as faith.

“People here did not care for the trees and their environment. Now they are facing the wrath of the gods,” he said after the storm that battered the 5,000-foot-tall Hidimba Mountain.

The Indian government estimated in 1997 that the country had a net loss of about 2,400 square miles of dense forest between 1995 and 1996.

Swami Vankhandi found only pines and two dry springs when he arrived four decades ago at his mountain in the Kumaon, the Himalayan outback that draws millions of tourists every year.

He squatted on government-owned land on the mountaintop. In his retreat and elsewhere on the mountain, he has planted more than 3,000 trees and hundreds of medicinal plants. He has posted small signs identifying wild, edible tree and shrub species, orchids, ferns, flowering plants and healing herbs along the slopes.

The swami, or master, also banned logging, foraging for wood or fodder, and hunting in his retreat. Similar government rules had been ignored for decades, but the swami’s orders, although resented, were followed by most local people who respected his religious position.

A Solitary Life on the Mountain

But he has enemies. Wood poachers have tried to shoot or poison him on several occasions, said Sanjay Rattan, an environmental activist who once worked with the World Wildlife Fund and now occasionally represents the Hindi-speaking swami at international environmental conferences.

“The people are not happy with me, but the trees and birds are,” the swami said.

Saffron-robed swamis are common in India. They take vows of celibacy and dedicate themselves to lives of religious learning, roaming cities, sleeping in temples and living mostly on offerings.

Vankhandi grew up in a village in the nearby hill resort of Almora, where he began his religious training. He later lived alone for 11 years in a cave close to India’s mountainous border with Tibet. When he emerged, it was to do his part for the preservation of rare plant varieties, animals and birds--his lifelong passion.

The swami lives alone in a mud-thatched hut that is reached by a rugged climb. He sustains himself on offerings from local people, and devotees say he never asks for favors. Some people call him “the environment saint.”

Scientists from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Wildlife Fund and leading Indian botanical laboratories have taken note of the swami’s work. But no one has provided money to help finance his efforts, he said.

In 1995, he left the forest for the first time in decades to travel to Japan for an international conference on faith and the environment, organized by the Alliance on Religion and Conservation, headed by Britain’s Prince Philip.

Two years later, officials of the international group traveled to the swami’s mountain to discuss a conservation project. But he rejected it because all spending and decision-making powers would have been with the group.

If, for instance, the swami wanted to build a tank to store water for the dry summer months, he would have had to get an OK from faraway officials.

“I can only serve the forest,” he said.