I know it’s been a while since I blogged, but it’s been hard to find an internet connection. It’s either so spotty in the places I’ve been or there is no public internet access. Right now I’m in Gaya, Bihar, waiting for an 8:30 PM train to Kolkata (Calcutta). This connection is off and on, but I’m going to take a crack at this.
I went directly from Delhi to Lumbini, Nepal, the birthplace of Siddhartha. This took a couple of days, but the border crossing was quick and easy. They even added a fourth day to the usual free three day visa. It’s just over the border from India and is really pretty much the same, except Nepal is poorer than Uttar Pradesh where I had come from. They even take Indian currency. It’s less of a tourist attraction than I thought it would be. It’s not just that it’s off season. They are obviously not set up for a huge influx of tourists. There are a few gusethouses, but none that typify a tourist ghetto. There is little western food, and no “scene” at all. There’s one main street and the through road. It’s really quite lovely around there, all green and ruralesque. And rainy this time of year.
The sites are just beside the town. they consist of the place where he was born and a number of temples from different Buddhist countries and traditions. There is also a French temple. Somehow, in 1996 archeologists uncovered a footprint in stone that marks the exact spot he was born. It’s under bulletproof glass and housed along with the ruins of that building and later buildings on the spot inside a pink enclosure.
There were no images of the Buddha until about 2oo years after he died. Footprints mark important Buddhist sites prior to that time, and after for a while also. This footprint is pretty far down a hole, and the picture is taken straight down.
It’s kind of funny. I didn’t feel all gushy about being there or in any of the other sites I’ve been to in the last couple of weeks. A little subdued maybe. Sarnath was awe inspiring, but this time I basically had my usual historical interest. I guess wherever you go, there you are.
There are many temples there, as you can well imagine. Here are shots of a three of them.
This last one is of the Thai temple. Just about where I’m takaing this picture, I ran into a professor of Buddhist studies and the history of the time. He started up a conversation with me, as so many Indians do, and we ended up arranging the next day to go out 22 km to Kapilavastu where the ruins of the palace Siddartha grew up in are. Most of the Buddhist sites here and in India are heavily restored. The bricks you see here are mostly new and outline the foundation of the east gate, where he went out to become a wandering ascetic, never to return to his life of luxury, his wife and his kid.
Less than a hundred years after he died, Kapilavastu was conquered by the neighboring kingdom and his whole line executed. That kingdom was in turn conquered by Ashoka. now you’ve got your timeline, for those of you who care, who I doubt there are many. It was a great opportunity for me to have been able to pick that professors brain. It was a highlight of my time in Nepal. He’s written to me twice now and seems to want to correspond. I’m really pleased.
The next stop was back in India, in Kushinigar where the Buddha died. There is the restored ruins of the stupa where they think he was cremated but I don’t have a good picture of it. It looks like the stupa on the site of the milkmaid’s home that follows which looks just like it. This is the more modern stupa, only a few centuries old.
There is also a lingum stupa with a nice 9th century reclining Buddha inside. It is said he attained enlightenment twice in his lifetime, when sitting under a bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, Bihar, and when he died. I assume that’s just tradition, but that’s the folklore anyway, so staues of him lying on his deathbed are common.
The last of the four main pilgrimage sites is Bodhgaya, where it is said he was sitting under a Bodhi tree when it dawned on his that wandering around starving and mediating wasn’t going to necessarily save all beings. Near to Bodhgaya he accepted some rice and milk from a milkmaid, to the horror of his ascetic companions. The spot is said to be out in this field here where there is a small HIndu temple now. Mind you, Hindus worship the Buddha as the 8th incarnation of Krishna. I have to believe they came up with this when Buddhism was spreading throughout the region at that time. Krishna, as the son of Vishnu is still above him in that system. But that’s boring. Here is the spot out in the field, and also the partially restored remains of an ancient stupa said to be on the site of the milkmaids home.
Milkmaids. They are always coming up with milkmaids in Hindu/Buddhist stories. There is the cow connection and a famous story about how that laugh-a-minute Krishna stole the clothes of some bathing milkmaids and made them come out of the water to get them. He also changed into several appearances, in another story, so a bunch of them would think he wasn’t the same old Krishna wooing them all at once.
Finally, there is the place he got enlightened. The original Bodhi tree was killed by some gal who presumably didn’t think much of Buddhism. A piece of it was taken to Sri Lamka, however, and a cutting from that tree is thriving within a temple complex in Bodhgaya, Bihar. This is the most visited and generally most revered of the four sites. Here are three pictures, from about 50 meters away, from basically just beyuond the reach of it’s branches, and riight under it. I am not the only one who has stood for a photo in front of the stone that marks where he was sitting. Still, it felt a little funny. Say cheese.
Let’s see, what else did I upload? Well, near Bodhgaya is a place where he meditated for a long time. The guy I met in Bodhgaya who drove me all over on his bike said it was for six years before his tree moment, but up in Rajgir they say he did it six years there. There were only six years from when he left the palace to when he attained enlightenment, so… Probably it’s all folklore. Anyway, there is a little temple up on that hillside. In that temple is a little room. Every year the Dalai Lama comes here to meditate, pray and hit the drum, as monks often do.
I’ve also go a picture of this nice fountain at a temple in Bodhgaya.
And here is a statue of the Buddha protected by nagas, or snakes, in the middle of a pool. For once, the green water doesn’t look so bad.
It looks like I’ve just about got this done. Whew, dealing with electricity and connectivity in Bihar has been the WORST. As Julia Roberts said in Erin Brokovich, “and I am very tired.”
I don’t know my plans exactly. I’m going to Kolkata. During the next week I should find out if I’m getting together with Beatrice. If I don’t do that, I’ll likely go to Isreal. I was told by someone at the Isreali embassy, who admitted she wasn’t sure, that she thinks I have to have six months left on my passport to enter Isreal. I haven’t gotten around to confirming that yet, but I will and I’ll let you know what’s up. Maybe I’ll go up to Darjeeling and Sikkim. You know how decisive I am.
Be well, all of you.