The Śālistambasūtra as pharmakon against the naturalization of contemporary ecological discourse forms
Maria Electra Pacini – DREST (Italian Doctoral School for Religious Studies), Department of Asian and North African Studies (DSAAM), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2022-2025)
Recipient of a PhD scholarship funded by the UBI Research Center.
Maria Electra’s research project aims to demonstrate that Buddhist texts can serve as effective tools for addressing contemporary environmental issues. Her investigation, grounded in a philological anthropology that restores centrality to the textual dimension, emphasizes the need for a reversal of perspective with respect to traditional approaches to Buddhism and ecology. Through a close reading and critical analysis of the sources, the research explores how the inquiring subject – shaped by pre-existing discourses and sedimented images – contributes to the reproduction of reified conceptions of “nature” through language, thought, and action.
The primary source examined in this context is the Śālistambasūtra (ca. 3rd century CE), a Mahāyāna text that embodies the ecological implications of pratītyasamutpāda and proposes a rethinking of the relationship between action (karman) and consequence (phala). Following a historical and philological reconstruction of the text – based on Chinese and Tibetan versions, as well as citations found in Sanskrit and Pāli sources – Maria Electra proposes the sūtra itself as a form of orthoptic therapy, aimed at rehabilitating a contemporary gaze still bound to reified and essentializing views of “nature”.
In 2023, in collaboration with the UBI Research Center, she launched the seminar series “Natura quo vadis. Semiosis and Topology of a Misunderstanding,”, structured around three conference days and three cycles of specialized readings. The initiative addresses how the notion of “nature” has been textualized over time and across contexts, showing how Buddhist sources may offer tools to overturn established paradigms in environmental thought.
Between autumn 2024 and winter 2025, Maria Electra undertook a research stay abroad, first at the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich.
