Month: November 2023

The other cities we’ve visited during this journey through just a small part of India – Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur – have all been centers of secular power and wealth and contending fortunes through the ages. We’ve come to Varanasi to see more clearly another side of life, that of the deep spirituality that lies at the heart of the faiths drawn here on pilgrimage, as well as the traditional culture of one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities.

Sarnath

Sarnath, just outside Varanasi, is one of four places of pilgrimage Buddha recommended to his followers. It is where he preached his first sermon after attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya under the famous Bodhi tree. It is also where the Buddhist community was established when his first five disciples attained enlightenment.

The Temple was lined with murals of his life from the prediction of his birth to his death.

In 1931 a graft was taken of the Bodhi tree and planted here in Sarnath to establish a deer park and temple. Throughout town there are complexes set up to accommodate Buddhist visitors from different countries. We noticed the one catering to Thai Buddhists in particular. It wasn’t far from the chain coffee shop (no, Indian, not Starbucks) where we relaxed from our trip until things opened.

In the archeological park at Sarnath is a stupa built by Ashoka around 250 B.C.E. Unpacking that, Ashoka was the third Mauryan Emperor and ruled much of the Indian subcontinent, stretching all the way to Afghanistan. Part way through his career, he converted to Buddhism and played an important role in its spread. A stupa contains the relics of a Buddhist monk or nun and devotees use it for meditation, typically a walking meditation circumambulating the stupa. This stupa is one of the oldest surviving ones in India and was one of many established by Ashoka by spreading more widely the relics of the Buddha from the original eight stupas holding his remains. In the medieval period after the decline of Buddhism in India, it was plundered for building materials and the stone box and casket within holding the relics were removed.

Near the stupa are the remains of a Buddhist monastery, apparently also from the time of Ashoka. There is no archaeological trace of the site of Buddha’s sermon or the launching of the faith with his five disciples. However, there is overwhelming literary evidence placing that here.

Among the ruins of the monastery, in a plexiglass case, are fragments of the pillar erected by Ashoka around 250 B.C.E. to commemorate the spot where the Buddha preached his first sermon almost 300 years previously. The Lion Capital which surmounted the pillar is housed in the nearby archaeological museum. You’ll notice that the wheel figure below the lions is featured on the Indian flag. The figure of the lions is the official emblem of the country.

Different animals are featured between the wheel figures, all related to Buddha. Here, the elephant refers to the white elephant seen by Buddha’s mother in a dream predicting his birth and greatness.

Works in the archeological museum recovered from the Sarnath site, mostly from the 1st century B.C.E. through the 12th century C.E.

The Ganges River in Varanasi

The Ganges is a busy river, especially in Varanasi, tasked with bringing purification, remission of sins, and assurance of release of the soul from the cycle of transmigration for those believers fortunate enough to die in Varanasi. Our guide always referred to the river by the name of its embodiment as a goddess (Ganga) and insisted on the inherent purity of its waters, telling us there’s a special bacteria that assures that purity, so that it is quite safe to bathe in and drink. There were no takers in our group.

We walked through the evening streets of Varanasi to the ghats (steps) down to the river where we boarded a boat to head out into the river for our first adventure on the Ganges.

The ghats were quiet as we set out on the water.

On the main crematorium ghat, however, demand keeps operations continuous, as the government now covers the cost of cremation for those who can’t otherwise afford it. One of the big costs is wood, as it requires 250 kg (helping to explain the large amounts of firewood we kept seeing on the highways and then in boats on the river). Perhaps as a reassurance to you, we can confirm that the cremations do not smell. This is due to the use of sandalwood, camphor and other spices. When the fire is finally extinguished, the family gathers the “relics,” some of which are retained at the crematorium with other relics and then washed away with the monsoons and some released immediately into the Ganges by the chief mourner of the family.

At sunset, following Hindu tradition, we each made an offering of deepak (oil lamps) to the river goddess Ganga from our boat idled in the middle of the river, before moving on to another ghat.

Every evening after sunset monks celebrate the Ganga Aarti with chanting, music, incense and choreographed thanksgiving to the river and the goddess Ganga. As you can see, it’s very well attended and a very colorful event.

In the morning, we returned to the ghats and our boat before sunrise, passing a small temple and catching a glimpse of one of the Jain Ascetics (upper right) who renounce everything, including clothing, and keep warm by covering their bodies with ashes. Jainism is one of the world’s oldest religions.

The buildings fronting the ghats are quite interesting.

But, at sunrise the ghats are full of the faithful who come to greet the sun, pray for an auspicious day and, bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges. For many pilgrims this is a first experience and deeply emotional.

A Moment for the Arts

In addition to the various workshops featuring textiles of different sorts, works in stone, and so forth, we found ourselves in a concert space created by the current star sitar player from a family of musicians tracing back 500 years. Yes, Ravi Shankar (also from Varanasi) was a friend of the family. First up, however, was a traditional dancer backed by tabla and a singer playing harmonium (introduced from France in the 17th century). In short, he was fabulous. The rhythmic complexity was astonishing, achieved by slapping and dragging his feet and jangling the 300 bells fastened to each of his ankles, interposed with hand movements and rapidly transforming poses to tell a story also being relayed by the singer. By the way, in training he uses 500 bells to increase his strength. Upper left is the Shiva posture.

Deobrat Mishra, the sitar artist, put Indian music into better context for his western listeners, explaining among other things that there is no harmony in Indian music, but more tones in between those in the western modes, with the Greek Lydian mode coming closest in feel to the music. Again, the rhythmic complexity and difficulty also made for an amazing performance and a fitting summing up of our experience in Varanasi.

With our brief visits to Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and Varanasi, we barely scratched the surface of India, but better appreciate how shallow our understanding continues to be. Wondering where that came from sets you back through the bewildering layers of time and contending traditions and influences of many peoples making their way through the mountains, valleys and plains of Asia.

On our way from Agra to Jaipur (remember, you’re probably reading these blog entries from the last day of our journey to the first), we passed a truck packed with happy, singing people our guide advised us were undoubtedly part of some religious movement.

Just 15 minutes further up the road, we started to see lots of buses parked along the highway and a steady stream of ordinary people walking behind the guardrail, going our direction, when we encountered a sea of people (our consensus estimate was 30,000) gathered for what we came to believe was a talk by a guru or other religious leader.

No, not him! The puppet master of a show at our Agra hotel recruited guests to help set the scene (very convincingly).

It’s the Brahmin cow, in particular when it’s white, that’s sacred, although the flat backed ones we’re used to are also revered. (Is that one actually being taken care of a water buffalo, rather than a cow?) In any case, we came to be sorry for the cows out there. We’re told that people watch after and feed them, but we mostly saw the cows scrounging in the trash or in very awkward situations like the one lower left who was up against the median on a very busy multi lane road, though we must admit that on our return trip he had somehow managed to work his way to the other side of the median. Impressive.

Amber (Amer) Fort

A few miles from Jaipur outside the town of Amer, is a very substantial and stunning hilltop fortress (1592), organized around four interior levels, that was home to the Rajput Maharajas. As sensibilities evolved over the treatment of animals, the prevailing means of transport up the slope became by jeep, although it isn’t nearly as romantic.

Upon entering the fort proper, there’s a stairway/gate up to the next level.

The Maharaja would use the Audience Hall to receive petitions and conduct public business. The Ganesh Gate is the entrance into the private quarters for the Maharaja and his family. The women could discreetly observe events in this main courtyard from behind the latticed top floor windows.

Through the Ganesh Gate and into the private quarters.

Lots of mirror mosaics, silver, colored glass and alabaster relief work makes for a dazzling impression.

Finally, the fourth and most private courtyard for the wives of the maharaja. With 12 wives, there were 12 apartments each with separate entrances. (At this point, we contemporary humans were all standing in the shade when we had the chance, as you can see in the photos.)

Jantar Mantar

In the beginning of the 18th century, the Maharaja of Jaipur constructed 5 solar observatories (Jantar Mantar) in different Indian cities, including Delhi and Varanasi, but of course also Jaipur. In Jaipur is the world’s largest stone sun dial from which the time can be told within an accuracy of 20 seconds (upper left). The observatories were used to compile astronomical tables and are, apparently, still in use today.

City Palace

After lunch at a nice restaurant inside the palace, we called it a day!

Dinner at the Smithie-Singhs

Dinner was unusual. We arrived at the home of a family with 12 daughters and got to visit with them. One of the many themes of our visit to India had been the status of women, as it certainly receives a lot of attention outside of the country. Indeed, one of our guest university lecturers was an expert on women’s issues in India. Of the 12 daughters, 11 had been adopted through social services and all are receiving a good education, encouraged to find their own way. They may sleep three in a bed, but it’s a large bed in a nice home. In fact, they’ve all changed caste and found themselves in a family that’s part of the nobility. The Bollywood dancing was a special treat.

Tomb of Itmad-Ud-Doulah

Alongside the Yamuna River lie the gardens and mausoleum of the Lord Treasurer (Itmad-Ud-Doulah) to the fifth Mughal Emperor Jahangir, housing the remains of his wife, as well, and built by their daughter (the mother of Mumtaz Mahal, later entombed in the Taj Mahal). Besides being comprised of simply beautiful buildings, the mausoleum is important as the first executed in white marble. As with other important mosques, tombs, and forts, the grounds are entered through imposing gateways.

Pleasure Garden of Mehta Bagh

Mehta Bagh was the last of 11 pleasure gardens created along the bank of the Yamuna by Emperor Babur in the early 16th century. Later, Shah Jahan (successor to Jahangir) identified it as an ideal place from which to view the Taj Mahal, which it is under different atmospheric conditions than those we encountered. For us, our introduction to the Taj Mahal was a grey looming, not the color effects created by a translucent white marble set to glow by non-hazardous air. Of course, it is still a beautiful and imposing building, impressively constructed. For instance, the four minarets actually lean outwards from true vertical to create the illusion that they are straight.

Taj Mahal

The next morning we made our way to the other side of the Yamuna to visit the Taj directly. Another illusion employed by the architects was to gradually increase the size of the Koranic verses surrounding the large central arch (above) so that to an observer on the ground they appear uniform in size.

We joined the thousands of fellow devotees patiently waiting for the air to clear to get a better view of this exquisite monument to love.

In the meantime, we donned our little blue booties to go inside and then admire the mausoleum from close up.

Mumtaz Mahal (Exalted of the Palace), neé Arjuman Banu, was the third and favorite wife of Shah Jahan, reportedly generous and wise and an advisor to her husband who accompanied him on military campaigns. She died bearing her 14th child while on campaign (1630), reportedly begging Jahan to build a monument to their love so beautiful the world could never forget. This he did, but spent his final days as his son’s prisoner, albeit confined to a room with a view of the Taj.

One last look at this fusion of Persian, Ottoman, and Indian traditions made possible only by profound love and grief and the resources to express them.

There were numerous warnings about monkeys in the approaches to the Taj Mahal. We had been warned before setting out for the day that, if we still had the marigold garland presented to us on our arrival in Delhi, we needed to leave it behind. Even though they represent purity and positive energy and are associated with Vishnu and Lakshmi, to monkeys they’re a tasty treat.

Agra Fort

It takes a while to get into the interior of Agra Fort, also along the Yamuna about 1.5 kilometers away from the Taj Mahal, really a walled city with a long past. The photo at lower left shows the ramp down which you would roll or pour whatever might impede an invader’s advance, or so we were told. The gateways were designed to protect against the most direct way inside, an elephant breaking through the wooden doors.

The beginnings of Agra Fort are not well understood, but it began to achieve more importance in the beginnings of the 16th century when the Sultan of Delhi moved his capital to Agra and constructed some buildings inside the fort. Thereafter, it changed hands with some frequency, although the Mughal Emperors were frequent owners. Our friend Shah Jahan is responsible for much of the white marble throughout the palace quarters, where he spent his final captive years looking down the river at the Taj Mahal.

The palace interiors were quite beautiful and well preserved from Shah Jahan’s time, providing a sense of what it might have been like to live there.

The older section of living quarters is simply in red sandstone.

Once luxurious and fashionable, especially during the heyday of Shah Jahan’s 17th century rule, Delhi now has an air of chaotic decay, hastened by much of its Muslim population fleeing the violence of Partition to find refuge in Pakistan.

The crunch of daily life with supplies of all kinds in their “final mile” arriving by almost any means, compounded by tour buses gently inching forward, people out shopping, the occasional cow wandering about, people trying to get where they’re going by foot, bicycle, motorcycle (holding, at most, four people), rickshaw, tuk tuk, tractor (thankfully not in the heart of old Delhi, that we noticed), taxi, or private car, and tour groups on rented bicycles, the idea of lanes of traffic completely disappears and there is a certain calm, perhaps even gracious, cooperation and mutual respect amidst the din of horns alerting everyone of the presence of yet one more vehicle with someplace to go.

With such intense traffic, we abandoned our bus and completed the journey to Jama Masjid on foot, following our guide’s constant advice to “walk like a cow” – confident, aware and no quick moves.

Since the mosque is an active place of worship, the women were provided with freshly laundered modesty robes by our tour provider, rather than wearing the mosque-provided robes. Shoes were, of course, left outside with the shoe walla. We heeded the advice to bring the disposable slippers from the hotel. Quite the fashion show.

From the mid 17th century, Jama Masjid is the largest mosque in India and was built by the legendary Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (who did much of the significant building projects in Delhi).

From the comparative serenity of a storied mosque, we plunged back into the old quarters of Delhi for a rickshaw ride which was strongly reminiscent of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, as we braced ourselves for a plunge through the narrow streets.

Well, that was exciting. Seriously.

Enroute to our New Delhi hotel, we stopped at the Raj Ghat, the cremation site of Mahatma Gandhi in a beautiful park setting. A ghat is any set of steps leading down to a river and “raj” is dominion or rule or royal. We understand all rivers to be sacred in Hinduism, although some more than others. The Yamuna River, flowing through Delhi is worshipped as the goddess Yamuna and downstream merges into the Ganges (or, Ganga Ji). According to the Hindu tradition, Gandhi’s “relics” post cremation were gathered and committed to the river. With some arcane exceptions, there are no Hindu cemeteries.

Qutub Complex

Welcome to Delhi, our port of entry in India, the seat of power for the Mughal and other Muslim Sultans and Emperors starting in the 11th and 12th centuries, the capital of British ruled India (established in the New Delhi sector) and the capital of post independence India since 1947. It also has some of the worst air quality in the world, overtopping the AirQualityIndex’s supposed ceiling of 500 consistently (where 400+ is “hazardous”), such as during our visit.

The most celebrated attraction at the complex is the very imposing and impressive minaret built in 1192 of sandstone and marble to a height of almost 240’, making it the tallest brick minaret in the world. It was a clan of Tajiks who settled in India, bringing Islam with them, who constructed the complex over a Hindu fort (with 27 temples) laid waste and converted to building materials.

Built by a predecessor dynasty of the Mughals, the complex repeatedly reflects the partnership of Hindu laborers overseen by Islamic architects in the ornamentation and some mangled Arabic. This includes representations of nature, such as flowers and trees, not otherwise found in mosques.

What’s unusual about this pillar is not only its antiquity (4th or 5th century) and its multiple Sanskrit inscriptions along its 24’ height, but its remarkable resistance to rust. The notorious Erich van Däniken cited it as proof of the visitation of aliens in his Chariots of the Gods, although he later recanted that interpretation when shown that the ancients were simply good metallurgists.

We all know the story of Mahatma Gandhi, his great campaign of nonviolence and success in ridding India of the British. What eludes us is why any Indian would want him dead. In the last few months of his life, Gandhi had moved into a single small room in a rather palatial home owned by one of his admirers. The run up to and the experience of Partition was devastating for Hindus and Muslims alike, a move long fervently opposed by Gandhi. However, at the last, he relented because of his fear of even greater violence and death if the separation were not to occur. It was that reluctant assent to Partition that could not be forgiven by his assassin, who walked up to Gandhi as he was to deliver remarks in the garden, paid his respects, and shot him. To many Hindus, the dismemberment of a great nation assembled for them by the British was a tragic turn of history. Many believed that Partition would be short lived. It has now been 75 years and is highly unlikely to ever be reversed.

Gurdwara Bangla Sahib

Any halfway adequate explanation of the Sikhs and Sikhism would certainly try your patience, but is well worth searching up on your own. Fortunately, we arrived in India reasonably prepared for the complexities of religion and caste or we would have been quite disoriented. In a nutshell, the Sikhs believe in the welfare of all, the radical equality of all and the obligation to serve all. That has led them to, for instance, provide certain medical services at prices even the poorest can afford (here, in Delhi) and to feed anyone and everyone who shows up at their temples (throughout the world).

In defiance of the (very much alive and thriving) caste system, all Sikhs use the same family name (Singh or lion, a warrior caste name), although not all Singhs are Sikh. Most people working in the kitchen are, to our understanding, volunteers.

A massive number of people are served. These shots were taken a very much an off hour for eating.

After touring the kitchens, we headed to the Temple proper, trying not to slip on the marble after walking through the foot bath in our bare feet, photos not permitted. The gold dome is a marker of a Sikh temple. This particular temple is significant in the history and practice of the faith and was originally a Raja’s bungalow (the opposite of what it means in the U.S.), hence “bangla sahib.” We were getting into this solidarity of the orange head scarves and the chance to spend extended quality time with cousin Gwen, as we got ready to head back to the bus.