India: Day 5
Apr. 23rd, 2005 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatarperegrineHere's the next entry from Justin's journal in India, supplemented by pictures. As always, my comments and additions are in square brackets, and pictures I stole from other people's websites are themselves links to the websites I stole them from. Take that, MLA.
A little background on day 5: we decided to go through with the Gaya/Bodh Gaya leg of our trip, despite the fact that there had been some violence lately and CMU's security advisor advised us not to go. Gaya and Bodh Gaya are in Bihar, one of the poorest states of India, which has recently had some violence from Naxilite (Maoist) rebels. There has also been some question of banditry on the road between the two towns. I think our nervousness about the situation made us much more edgy there than elsewhere, but we knew we didn't want to visit India and leave out Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
January 23
The train last night ended up being quite nice. The coach attendant didn't speak English, but was careful to let us know when our stop was, and the beds were (all things considered) quite comfy. Got into Gaya around 11:30 p.m.; there were many people sleeping on the floor in the station. We weren't sure if they were waiting for trains or homeless -- I suspect the latter; Bihar is supposed to be the poorest state in India, and what little we saw in Gaya was pretty rundown, even by local standards. We stayed at the big hotel across from the train station, which ended up being quite a dump. Nervous about Bihar's reputation, it was hard to get to sleep. Grabbed an auto rickshaw to Bodh Gaya in the morning, negotiated 80 rupees, paid 100. We shared the ride with a native from Delhi who was considering opening a guest house next to the Gaya airport, seeing it as a high growth opportunity. The region sure could use the investment. Apparently, according to this guy, the Gaya airport only does international flights to Southeast Asia, serving pilgrims to the Bodh Gaya area. No domestic flights, though the man was hopeful that would change.
Bodh Gaya is far larger and more crowded than we'd envisioned. There are signs that some event may be going on, but we can't work out what it might be -- there are TV crews sporadically, and masses of men who were sometimes heard shouting in the distance. It's kind of eerie, and we didn't feel comfortable enough to ask a local. It's probably quite innocuous, but we're a bit on edge given the reputation of the area.
Our first act in Bodh Gaya was to wander around and get quite lost, proving one of our guidebooks wrong. The maps we have of the area don't seem to be great, and eventually we took a rickshaw to the Bhutan Temple, where we hoped to stay. They were full, and it took us some rather frustrating time to find a place.
[What Justin doesn't say here is that I had a total meltdown at the Bhutanese Temple. After getting lost, being followed (see below), ripping my skirt in an embarrassing manner while mounting a cycle rickshaw, consequently flashing a group of monks while getting off said rickshaw, getting caught in a torrential downpour, and then being told that there was no room at the inn, I lost it. Thank you, Justin, for glossing over that in your journal.]
In the end we did find a nice, albeit expensive (for the region) guest house. While wandering, we picked up an escort of two (or possibly three) boys around 13 who I'm reasonably sure meant to relieve us of some of our possessions somehow. When we made it clear that we knew they were there, they took off, and we haven't seen them again.
We rested at the guest house for a while before venturing out for an early dinner at the Pole-Pole. My food was decent, but Marjorie's was pretty miserable. [Marjorie's note: despite the iffy food, the Pole-Pole was one of my favorite restaurants, simply because the Hindu shrine at the checkout counter featured an icon of Jesus next to the requisite Ganesha.]
[Before visiting the Pole-Pole, we went to see the 80-foot-tall statue of the Buddha erected by Japanese Buddhists. Since Buddhism died out in India by the 13th century, all the Buddhist shrines and temples have been built by Buddhist groups from other Asian countries. Thus, in addition to the Bhutanese temple, there are Tibetan temples, Japanese temples, Burmese, Chinese, Thai, temples, and more.]
From there we went to the Mahabodhi Temple, which is the reason the town is a pilgrimage point for Buddhists (and
[Here the lights went out]
Marjorie's notes:
This entry takes more explicating than most! First, power is not available 24/7 in all parts of India, and our hotel happened to lose power as Justin was writing in his journal. By the time they got the generator working, we had already decided to go to bed, and Justin never finished writing the entry. Thus I am writing more below, because this was a very important day in our trip.
Second, we did work out later what events may have precipitated the TV cameras and general vibe that something major was going on. First, the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism evidently holds their annual Monlam Chenmo (Great Prayer Festival) in Bodh Gaya, and the Dalai Lama and hundreds (thousands?) of Tibetan Buddhists were there to celebrate the festival by praying for world peace for three weeks. More immediately, though, there were state elections happening the next week, and the usual chaos leading up to those elections. Unbeknownst to us, for example, one candidate had been assassinated in Gaya the night before. There were armed people in uniform everywhere in Bodh Gaya, and it was only afterwards that we read about how the "paramilitary" had been called in (!) to maintain order throughout the state. The combination of the religious pilgrims and the local politics gave the town a very strange atmosphere indeed.
With those clarifications aside, I will continue the account of our day.
In the evening we visited the Mahabodhi (Great Enlightenment) Temple, which in its present form was built in the 6th century, destroyed by Muslims in the 13th century, and then extensively restored in the late 19th century by Burmese monks. It commemorates the exact site where the Buddha is believed to have achieved enlightenment. The temple is a rather massive complex, which you must removed your shoes to enter. There are three walkways orbiting the temple, and when you enter the grounds you are swept into the current of Buddhist monks, nuns and laypeople and Hindu pilgrims (the Buddha being, in Hindu eyes, the ninth incarnation of Vishnu) circumambulating the temple. Some circumambulators are singing prayers or counting prayers on their rosaries. Others prostrate each step of the way, moving like inchworms around the temple. Others chat with friends or even on cell phones. Some sort of Buddhist version of PETA is passing out pro-vegetarian leaflets and buttons, and one of them is dressed as a cow.
Joining this throng, we circumambulated the temple on the highest path and then moved down to the path closest to the temple. (Oddly, the middle path was deserted; that's where the picture below was taken.) Close to the temple are a number of other sacred objects: a descendent of the original bodhi tree, the "rock of diamond" where the Buddha sat under it, a rock with the Buddha's footprints carved (or naturally embedded, depending who you ask) in it, the consecrated promenade where the Buddha paced while debating what to do with the message he received, and so on. There's even a Shiva linga there!
After circumambulating on this path a couple times, we sat down to meditate under the Bodhi tree itself. Just as we sat, the evening call to prayer started up at a nearby mosque, and the now-familiar sounds of Allahu akbar, "God is great," floated towards us. It was a surreal moment, or perhaps a serendipitous one.
We peeked into the temple itself, which was jam-packed with pilgrims. We decided that we really didn't need to join the throng to see the statue of the Buddha himself, so we bowed and moved on.
Justin took this picture after we had moved back out to the middle path. I am the figure in green kneeling in the foreground.
Our day in Bodh Gaya was one of the most anxiety-producing ones we had faced; it was more unnerving than I anticipated to be traveling alone in an area of questionable public safety with no way to know what was happening around us, why we heard shouts and marches in the distance, or why everyone in Pole-Pole gathered around the TV looking somber when the news came on. There could not possibly have been a better way to end that day than to have the opportunity to meditate under the Bodhi tree, and to be swept up in the worship and the prayers for peace of thousands of Buddhist pilgrims.
[On to Day 6: Bodh Gaya]
[Back to Day 4: Varanasi]
A little background on day 5: we decided to go through with the Gaya/Bodh Gaya leg of our trip, despite the fact that there had been some violence lately and CMU's security advisor advised us not to go. Gaya and Bodh Gaya are in Bihar, one of the poorest states of India, which has recently had some violence from Naxilite (Maoist) rebels. There has also been some question of banditry on the road between the two towns. I think our nervousness about the situation made us much more edgy there than elsewhere, but we knew we didn't want to visit India and leave out Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
January 23
The train last night ended up being quite nice. The coach attendant didn't speak English, but was careful to let us know when our stop was, and the beds were (all things considered) quite comfy. Got into Gaya around 11:30 p.m.; there were many people sleeping on the floor in the station. We weren't sure if they were waiting for trains or homeless -- I suspect the latter; Bihar is supposed to be the poorest state in India, and what little we saw in Gaya was pretty rundown, even by local standards. We stayed at the big hotel across from the train station, which ended up being quite a dump. Nervous about Bihar's reputation, it was hard to get to sleep. Grabbed an auto rickshaw to Bodh Gaya in the morning, negotiated 80 rupees, paid 100. We shared the ride with a native from Delhi who was considering opening a guest house next to the Gaya airport, seeing it as a high growth opportunity. The region sure could use the investment. Apparently, according to this guy, the Gaya airport only does international flights to Southeast Asia, serving pilgrims to the Bodh Gaya area. No domestic flights, though the man was hopeful that would change.
Bodh Gaya is far larger and more crowded than we'd envisioned. There are signs that some event may be going on, but we can't work out what it might be -- there are TV crews sporadically, and masses of men who were sometimes heard shouting in the distance. It's kind of eerie, and we didn't feel comfortable enough to ask a local. It's probably quite innocuous, but we're a bit on edge given the reputation of the area.
Our first act in Bodh Gaya was to wander around and get quite lost, proving one of our guidebooks wrong. The maps we have of the area don't seem to be great, and eventually we took a rickshaw to the Bhutan Temple, where we hoped to stay. They were full, and it took us some rather frustrating time to find a place.
[What Justin doesn't say here is that I had a total meltdown at the Bhutanese Temple. After getting lost, being followed (see below), ripping my skirt in an embarrassing manner while mounting a cycle rickshaw, consequently flashing a group of monks while getting off said rickshaw, getting caught in a torrential downpour, and then being told that there was no room at the inn, I lost it. Thank you, Justin, for glossing over that in your journal.]
The beautiful Bhutanese Temple in Bodh Gaya,
where Marjorie experienced her first nervous breakdown.
In the end we did find a nice, albeit expensive (for the region) guest house. While wandering, we picked up an escort of two (or possibly three) boys around 13 who I'm reasonably sure meant to relieve us of some of our possessions somehow. When we made it clear that we knew they were there, they took off, and we haven't seen them again.
We rested at the guest house for a while before venturing out for an early dinner at the Pole-Pole. My food was decent, but Marjorie's was pretty miserable. [Marjorie's note: despite the iffy food, the Pole-Pole was one of my favorite restaurants, simply because the Hindu shrine at the checkout counter featured an icon of Jesus next to the requisite Ganesha.]
Chaotic view from the Pole-Pole.
[Before visiting the Pole-Pole, we went to see the 80-foot-tall statue of the Buddha erected by Japanese Buddhists. Since Buddhism died out in India by the 13th century, all the Buddhist shrines and temples have been built by Buddhist groups from other Asian countries. Thus, in addition to the Bhutanese temple, there are Tibetan temples, Japanese temples, Burmese, Chinese, Thai, temples, and more.]
Eighty-foot tall Buddha. Would the Buddha approve? Or is this like looking at the finger instead of the moon it points to?
From there we went to the Mahabodhi Temple, which is the reason the town is a pilgrimage point for Buddhists (and
[Here the lights went out]
Marjorie's notes:
This entry takes more explicating than most! First, power is not available 24/7 in all parts of India, and our hotel happened to lose power as Justin was writing in his journal. By the time they got the generator working, we had already decided to go to bed, and Justin never finished writing the entry. Thus I am writing more below, because this was a very important day in our trip.
Second, we did work out later what events may have precipitated the TV cameras and general vibe that something major was going on. First, the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism evidently holds their annual Monlam Chenmo (Great Prayer Festival) in Bodh Gaya, and the Dalai Lama and hundreds (thousands?) of Tibetan Buddhists were there to celebrate the festival by praying for world peace for three weeks. More immediately, though, there were state elections happening the next week, and the usual chaos leading up to those elections. Unbeknownst to us, for example, one candidate had been assassinated in Gaya the night before. There were armed people in uniform everywhere in Bodh Gaya, and it was only afterwards that we read about how the "paramilitary" had been called in (!) to maintain order throughout the state. The combination of the religious pilgrims and the local politics gave the town a very strange atmosphere indeed.
With those clarifications aside, I will continue the account of our day.
In the evening we visited the Mahabodhi (Great Enlightenment) Temple, which in its present form was built in the 6th century, destroyed by Muslims in the 13th century, and then extensively restored in the late 19th century by Burmese monks. It commemorates the exact site where the Buddha is believed to have achieved enlightenment. The temple is a rather massive complex, which you must removed your shoes to enter. There are three walkways orbiting the temple, and when you enter the grounds you are swept into the current of Buddhist monks, nuns and laypeople and Hindu pilgrims (the Buddha being, in Hindu eyes, the ninth incarnation of Vishnu) circumambulating the temple. Some circumambulators are singing prayers or counting prayers on their rosaries. Others prostrate each step of the way, moving like inchworms around the temple. Others chat with friends or even on cell phones. Some sort of Buddhist version of PETA is passing out pro-vegetarian leaflets and buttons, and one of them is dressed as a cow.
Joining this throng, we circumambulated the temple on the highest path and then moved down to the path closest to the temple. (Oddly, the middle path was deserted; that's where the picture below was taken.) Close to the temple are a number of other sacred objects: a descendent of the original bodhi tree, the "rock of diamond" where the Buddha sat under it, a rock with the Buddha's footprints carved (or naturally embedded, depending who you ask) in it, the consecrated promenade where the Buddha paced while debating what to do with the message he received, and so on. There's even a Shiva linga there!
After circumambulating on this path a couple times, we sat down to meditate under the Bodhi tree itself. Just as we sat, the evening call to prayer started up at a nearby mosque, and the now-familiar sounds of Allahu akbar, "God is great," floated towards us. It was a surreal moment, or perhaps a serendipitous one.
We peeked into the temple itself, which was jam-packed with pilgrims. We decided that we really didn't need to join the throng to see the statue of the Buddha himself, so we bowed and moved on.
Justin took this picture after we had moved back out to the middle path. I am the figure in green kneeling in the foreground.
Marjorie under the Bodhi tree
Our day in Bodh Gaya was one of the most anxiety-producing ones we had faced; it was more unnerving than I anticipated to be traveling alone in an area of questionable public safety with no way to know what was happening around us, why we heard shouts and marches in the distance, or why everyone in Pole-Pole gathered around the TV looking somber when the news came on. There could not possibly have been a better way to end that day than to have the opportunity to meditate under the Bodhi tree, and to be swept up in the worship and the prayers for peace of thousands of Buddhist pilgrims.
[On to Day 6: Bodh Gaya]
[Back to Day 4: Varanasi]
