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Paper short abstract

This paper explores the complex entanglements of human, non-human, and inhumane natures in Indian fairy tales, folktales, and wonder media.

Paper long abstract

Indian folklore and wonder narratives have long grappled with the porous boundaries between the human, the non-human, and the inhumane. From ancient Sanskrit compendia such as the Panchatantra and Jataka Tales to regional oral traditions and contemporary digital animations, these stories consistently foreground non-human beings—animals, spirits, landscapes, and divine forces—as central actors rather than peripheral figures.

This paper investigates how Indian tales and wonder media conceptualize “natures” that move beyond the human. Talking animals in the Panchatantra are not simply anthropomorphic but serve as moral philosophers, teaching kings and commoners strategies for survival, diplomacy, and justice. In tribal folktales from central and northeastern India, rivers, forests, and sacred groves are narrated as sentient, imbued with protective or punitive powers that regulate human conduct. Meanwhile, figures such as the yakshi or churel embody the “inhumane” by merging human suffering with spectral vengeance, dramatizing gendered violence within ecological and supernatural settings.

By examining these narrative layers, I argue that Indian fairy tales and wonder media present a pluralistic ecological imagination where humans are only one among many agents negotiating survival and morality. Ultimately, the paper suggests that Indian folklore and wonder media stage an interspecies dialogue that destabilizes anthropocentric hierarchies. These narratives offer alternative cosmologies where ecological and supernatural interdependence is central, and where non-human voices articulate ethical claims. In the context of global ecological crises, revisiting such Indian perspectives provides a fertile ground for reimagining human-nature relationships in more-than-human terms.