Inside the Fishbowl

Religious Retreat

If you ever get the chance to travel to India, one of the first things you will observe is that religion is everywhere.  Temples to the various Hindu gods dot the streets.  People have statues of their favorite god on the dashboards of their cars.  Men and women paint a tilak on their foreheads to signify that they have prayed (at least that's what they tell me), and pujas (prayers) are said on all significant occasions to gain the favor of the gods.  Religion is everywhere and it is a beautiful thing, both philosophically and aesthetically.  You haven't seen colorful until you've seen the inside of a Hindu temple.

The religions aspect of Indian life has long been fascinating to me, so when I began planning our time here I was very aware of trying to find sites of religious significance.  My research took me to the state of Maharashtra's tourism website where I read about several complexes of caves carved out of mountains by monks of various faiths.  The city of Aurangabad seemed to be the perfect base camp, so we booked a flight from Delhi and headed south.

Nothing could have prepared me for the three cave complexes we visited, the Aurangabad, Ellora and Ajanta caves.  Three religions are represented at the caves.  Aurangabad and Ajanta house only Buddhist works, but Ellora contains Jain, Buddhist and Hindu temples and monasteries.  Simply put, they were breathtaking.  The photos I'm about to share can't possibly do them justice.  

As you look at these photos, keep in mind that the caves were carved around 200 to 400 after the birth of Christ, with simple hand tools.  They were meant to be places of worship and retreat for monks and pilgrims seeking a closeness to god.  What kind of devotion was necessary for these artists to look at a mountainside and decide to begin carving? 

AURANGABAD CAVES

Sculpture of the Bodhisattva Tara.

Just for scale--Jeremy is 5'9" tall.  Remember, these caves are hand carved out of a mountain.

If you ever want to feel like a rock star, come to India and go to a rural area.  They don't see many white people there and they will want to take about a million pictures with you.  Oh, and just look at those colors!  Why are the clothes we wear so drab?

Why are statues of the Buddha so lovely and serene?  Even this one with most of his limbs fallen off is stunning.  I probably took about a thousand photos of Bhudda statues throughout the three cave complexes, but this is the first.

ELLORA CAVES

Jain Caves

The first "cave" we saw--a true sight to behold--the Chhota Kailash temple, a monolithic temple with a surrounding monastery.  I have to admit, I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to do some sort of filter over this to give it a really dreamlike quality.  You may not see it as it really is, but you'll know how I think of it.  Simply beautiful.

A painting from inside the temple.  How beautiful!  Unfortunately, I don't know who this is.  I don't know much about Jainism, but I'm guessing he's on the the tirthankars. 

Hindu Caves

Kailasantha Temple.  This is the largest monolithic building in the world.  The temple was carved from the top of the mountain down over a period of 100 years to imitate Mt Kailas, the mountain home of the gods.  Much of the art in the colonnade surrounding the temple focuses on the god Shiva and his wife, Parvati.  Around the outside of the temple is the story of Rama's exile from his kingdom, the kidnapping of his wife, Sita, by Ravanna the ten-headed demon.  Rama's triumphant return is celebrated every year during the Diwali festival (whose celebration I'm hearing outside my window as I type).  The stories depicted on the wall are recounted in the Hindu scripture, the Ramayana.  I've learned a lot about this while I've been here.  Diwali is as big a celebration as Christmas is for us, and in many ways the celebration of Diwali echoes the celebration of Christmas. . .with some Independence Day mixed in.  We're going out later to have our own fireworks show at the home of Pankaj Misra, our friend here in India.

Oh, one last thing, to give a little perspective.  This temple is twice as big as the Parthenon in Athens.

Buddhist Caves

This is the Tin Tal monastery (which I think denotes that it has 3 stories), a Buddhist monastery at Ellora. It is incredible and very highly ornamented as far as Buddhist monasteries go.  It has some of the most beautiful statues.

I wish I could remember what these statues are, but I'm guessing they're people who have gained enlightenment.  Maybe they're bodhisattvas??  Beautiful, though, aren't they?

There was a lot that we didn't get to see when we went to Ellora.  We'd hired a guide and he only showed us the highlights.  Now that I look back I wish I'd seen more, but what I did see was stunning. (Hiring the guide, by the way, was totally worth it. We saw much more in the caves that we did enter than we would have alone.)  Here's one more shot of Ellora before we bid that place goodbye.

AJANTA CAVES

The Ajanta Caves were the final cave complex that we visited.  While Ellora is well known for it's carvings, Ajanta is known for it's cave paintings.  They were breathtakingly beautiful.  Archaeologists believe that the Ajanta caves were abandoned and then forgotten by 480 AD.  The caves were rediscovered by a British hunter in 1819.  Over 1300 years of neglect by humans can account for their amazing preservation.  

Now, are you ready?  I'm going to show you a bunch of my favorite paintings.

Of course, the caves had amazing carvings as well, but none of them were as beautiful as the lying Buddha.

This reclining Bhudda has entered Nirvana. 

Here is a close-up of his face.

I'd say his eternal rest is going to be very peaceful, indeed.

Here are a few pictures of the outside of Ajanta.

Dedicated to Lord Ganesha

The Hindu pantheon is full of gods, more gods than any one person could reasonably keep track of.  They are all distinct, they tend toward having multiple heads or arms, and they all bear very human characteristics--as do most of the gods of this world.  Lord Ganesha is my favorite Hindu god.  He is known for his elephant head and his round belly. He a patron of the arts and sciences and is primarily known as the remover of obstacles.

I must have been blessed by Lord Ganesha last night.  We have been in Indore for nearly a week so that Jeremy and his partner, Dave, can work with their team or programmers here.  Our room at the Sayaji Hotel is nice and comfortable, but last night it began to smell of exhaust.  We tried to turn on the ceiling fan to no avail.  We tried to just go to sleep, but the odor continued to increase so uncomfortably that Jeremy finally called to the reception desk to complain.  The reassigned us to a new room--a suite in the middle of the hotel.  It's beautiful and spacious, and confirms my complete and utter American-ness in my love of, no my need to have more than enough room to spread out.  I'm spoiled that way.

Since arriving in Indore I have had very spotty Internet access.  But no more.  This room (I think it's the location within the hotel) has fabulous access.  I'll spend most of today going through photos, editing them and getting them ready, and then I'll be able to catch up on what we've been up to here.  It's been an amazing trip so far, eye opening as only travel to a country whose culture is so different from our own, and delightful at the same time.  I hope that Lord Ganesha keeps smiling upon me.  I have so much to share!

Beautiful India

I had an entire post all written up with lots of photos that was lost.  Even the automatic backup post was lost.  I had wanted to be more consistent with my posts, but the Internet here in Aurangabad is a little hit and miss.  Here are a few pictures from our day yesterday.  Went to see the Bibi aq Maqbara or the "Mini Taj" as the locals here call it, the Aurangabad caves and a Weaving shop called the Paithani Weaving Center.  Sorry, that's all the detail you get from me today.  Here are a few photos.

I took lots of great shots yesterday.  I hope to be able to post more when we reach Indore.  Even though it's been touted as the "Detroit of India," it's also one of India's technology centers so the Internet may be better.  See you in a few days!

Namaste

We're here!  We actually made it to India.  So far I've only seen the Indira Ghandi International Airport and the hotel.  It was night when we arrived.  I'm pretty sure the roads we drove on to get to the hotel were all dirt roads, and the only thing I know for sure is that Indian drivers use their horn as much (or more) as they use their gas pedals.

Here are some photos of my first experiences.

Getting ready to fly from Newark to Delhi.  We'd already been traveling for 14 hours and we still had 14 hours to go.  Can you say tired?

And you thought American food from a plane was bad?  Try Indian food cooked on a plane.  Not good, at all.  Well, the rice wasn't too bad, if I'm being completely honest.  Oh, and that sad little salad was edible.  But really, plain yogurt?  Luckily for breakfast I stirred my jam into it and it was only marginally inedible.  ;)

Never has a sign been so welcome!  Oh, and I had my first person do namaste to me this morning.  Why is that so exciting?

This is us in the body heat scanner.  Getting through customs included three stops--a health screening station, an immigration station, and a declarations station.

Every single one of the people lined up here is holding a sign for a guest--these are drivers waiting for their customers.  Ordinary people who were at the airport to pick up their friends and family waited outside. The airport was actually quite orderly and functioned seamlessly.  Jeremy says that it was quite different when they came her two years ago. Then, chaos reigned.

 

I took a whole Ambien and slept perfectly last night.  This morning we went down to breakfast.  I decided to dig right in and have some Indian food. As far as I can tell there's no diffence between meals here.  It's all the same food.  So I tried a potato dish (I can't remember what it's called--must keep my notebook with me at all times!) with some fried bread, a stuffed tomato, a steamed pork bun (not Indian at all!) fresh fruit, a mini chocolate iced donut and some sweet lime juice.  Yum!

My body is screaming at me to lay down and take a little nap.  That would be a mistake.  I need to get my sleep rhythms onto Indian time as quickly as possible, but oh, how wonderful a nap sounds about now.  Fortunately, one of Jeremy's colleagues, Pankaj, is coming in half an hour to take us out cell phone shopping for the afternoon.  You know, we can't be without our communication while we're here.  Perhaps later we'll go out into Delhi and do something.  We haven't gotten that far yet.  I'm excited to go out and see this place we've come to, though.  And of course, I'll keep you all posted.