Post for Varanasi, 11/23/09 to 11/24/09

Post for Varanasi, 11/23/09 to 11/24/09

Denise has already written how difficult this part of India was for us. The first picture is another “red rubber ball” sunset, taken from the rooftop restaurant at our guesthouse, the Rashmi. The restaurant is called the “Dolphin”—named for a freshwater, blind dolphin species that supposedly inhabits the Ganges. We’d go to the roof to relax on each of the four days we were there. I quite lost my appetite for adventure and for seeing new things because I was simply meat on the street whenever I stepped to the lobby of the guesthouse. I suppose I should say that I was “rupees on the street,” since Hindus are supposed to be vegetarian. Anyone who saw me would ask if I would like to buy what they were selling, following for as long as I made eye contact, urging the fine quality of what they were selling and repeatedly naming lower prices as they followed.
On Tuesday the 24th we hired a driver to take us to Sarnath, about 10 kilometers north of Varanasi. This is one of almost a dozen sites in northeastern India known as the “Buddha Trail” because they are associated with the Buddha’s life and death. Sarnath is where Buddhist tradition says that Buddha first met with his disciples, and at a different site a few hundred yards away, first preached to them. There are Buddhist monuments, called “stupas” to mark each of the events.
Picture 2: Stupa marking the meeting place of Buddha and his disciples after his enlightenment. It is topped by an addition marking the visit of the Mughal Emperor Humayon to the site in the 1500s.
Asoka, the Mauryan Emperor who converted to Buddhism after an especially bloody victory in 260 B.C. also visited Sarnath, and built a stupa to preserve Buddha’s relics. He raised a huge pillar to commemorate the event, topped with a “capital” of 4 lions facing the four points of the compass. It was made of polished sandstone and was excavated in good condition by archeologists about a century ago. We saw the “capital” in the fine, quiet archeological museum in Sarnath. Photography is forbidden in the museum, so one has to see the capital on India’s currency—it’s India’s national emblem.
Picture 3 shows that quiet dignity can’t prevail everywhere, even on the “Buddha Trail!”
Picture 4 is the stupa at the place Buddha began teaching his disciples.
Picture 5, next door to the stupa in picture 4, shows a Jain Temple. Jains are a religion founded 2500 years ago a about the same time as Buddhism. Jains are pacifists and vegetarians, and even try to avoid killing small “bugs.”
Picture 6 is a piece of the drive back to Varanasi. The intense, lawless traffic meant the !0 kilometer ride took about 45 minutes each way. We did not feel safe with this man, and whenever we protested, he would point at the medallion hanging from the rear view mirror in the picture, say “Oh my God!” and start laughing. (The medallion represented his God—I’ve forgotten which one of the Hindu pantheon it was.) As we got closer to Varanasi, his wild accelerations around other traffic became less availing, and we were caught in several gridlocks lasting for 5 or 10 minutes. We had hired him for a half day, and as 1 p.m. approached (doubtless the start of another commitment), he began—as early as 4 km from the center of Varanasi—to tell us that traffic was really too thick and that we should get out and walk the rest of the way, as it wasn’t too far. Each time we resisted, even when he cell-phoned a buddy to appear at the car window to tell us that the road ahead was closed! We forged ahead, and while the road was in the process of closing at one place for some kind of market, the policeman thankfully on hand (they’re extremely rare in India!) was willing to let us through.
Picture 7 is back on the rooftop after our adventure. I remember Denise as relieved, Reade irritated, and David resting—having just been diagnosed with the hernia that he is to have treated in Ho Chi Minh City!

Paul