one part brick

my friend and neighbor here in sarnath, bhikshuni jampa tsedroen, is also working on her dissertation. unlike me, she has just passed a major milestone in completing her draft. she celebrated with a quick trip to a nearby stupa.

local tradition has it that this stupa marks the spot where the buddha actually give the first discourse on the 'four noble truths' and where his first disciples became monks. it thus is revered as the place where the monastic order first took shape. (a similar honor is accorded a spot near the sri lankan mulagandhakuti temple here.) but this spot boasts a stupa that even in ruins towers high above the surrounding countryside; the photo above was taken only halfway up its side. a mughal king later had a pavilion erected on the top of the buddhist structure to commemorate a visit - in the sort of move to assert dominance over a place while drawing on its established sacrality that has been practiced by imperializing cultures everywhere.

the links connecting place and event in the life of the buddha are often tenuous. like many other such spots, it exists as one part brick, two parts imagination. happily, this spot is particularly rich in bricks.

a ride from the clinic

last week i managed to pour boiling water all over my hand. after googling 'burn boiling water first aid' and finding that anything as large as the area i had covered required 'immediate medical attention,' i was forced to overcome my instinctive resistance to visits to doctors. but a late evening trip to a local clinic just four minutes up the road proved extremely successful - it turned out to be run by a small community of indian women who are also catholic nuns, one a doctor trained in austria and three nurses. they all live onsite, and when we arrived, well after the clinic's closing hours, found them praying together in a simple chapel in back. a sister interrupted her devotions to come out and immediately said of course we will treat you. they did, and refused to accept payment for the service or medication. i came away with a very wholesome looking gunk to plaster over my burn, an admiration for the lives these women are leading and a renewed respect for the service work that christians can be found doing.

unfortunately, my visits to the clinic did not end there. though my hand is healing very nicely, a fairly debilitating stomach bug decided its turns was next. so after spending most of the week in bed i returned today. they put me on cipro, offered me a cup of tea, and sent me back home. i had taken my camera with me hoping to take a photo of their image of christ seated cross-legged with one hand in meditation posture, the other on classic buddhist gesture offering fearlessness or security. remembering on the rickshaw i failed to do so, i took random photos of the series of images that i see regularly during my daily five-minute ride to the tibetan institute. none are remarkable photos, nor were they taken with much care. in fact, they are so ordinary i look forward to viewing them later just for the nostalgia that is best fed by what is ordinary, but only in a given context.

what you see is in the order i passed it during the brief ride, all extraordinarily unworthy of notice here. sit on the edge of your seat, spine straight, and scroll lazily through these images if you want a sense of my ride home: - young girl playing outside gate (above)


- an outdoor barber shop; note brick floor



- a woman walking barefoot down the street (rickshaw driver's back in the extreme foreground)



- a roadside sweet shop cum pan shop cum chai shop with patient client in seating area,



- a cyclist picking his way between cow and her calf,



- a home shuttered up and in disuse,



- a man transporting the gas tanks used in any home that can afford to upgrade from cow dung or coal fires for cooking,



- a roadside furniture shop (manufacturing and sales outlet),



- vegetable stand next to barber shop (sarnath has what seems to me more than its fair share of barber shops for some reason - this is one of at least seven i pass daily),


- an elderly woman pictured near her home making patties out of cow dung to use for fuel, surrounded by goats on excruciatingly short tethers and paan shop,



- motorcycle repair shop (hero honda being the country's most popular model)



- cow hobbled by rope linking neck and leg so it cannot stray far, driver wiping down car while waiting for owner and ad for a local private school


- field of gracious trees crisscrossed by paths villagers take to reach the road - also doubles as cricket ground and garbage dump



- front yard mill - also doubles as laundry drying rack and little boy's plaything



- unmarried girls chatting on strong cot, family buffalo looking longingly at fodder bin



- dharmachakra gate to private home



- roadside grocer


- cow plays her part in the village's ad hoc recycling process



- our neighbor's servant giving directions to a motorist

so: do those of you who have been to india feel nostalgic or what? please leave a comment: they are most welcome and all-too-few on this blog!

pretty great resolution

yes, this satellite image of sarnath has pretty great resolution. that is the stupa casting its shadow in the morning sun. these days, those who like my mexican friend flora who spend their days here meditating or doing other spritual practices at the stupa no longer chase the shade around the stupa throughout the day, as they did in october when i first arrived here. now it is the sun's thin warmth they seek.


Sarnath, India map - Tagzania

a chill in uttar pradesh

this week in the north indian state of utter pradesh, temperatures have begun their slide to winter lows. as are the indian monks in this photo, with their shawls and wool hats, i am feeling the chill as daytime temperatures now hover around 70 degrees and can dip into the mid 60s at night.

far greater causes for chill, though, are the bombs set off last friday across the state. it seems earlier in the year, defense lawyers across this state had decided as a group that they would not defend people accused of terrorism-related crimes. now, some terrorist group or other planted bombs that exploded almost simultaneously at courthouses across the state, including that of nearby varanasi. the junior home minister (the ministry in charge of internal security, police etc) told the new york times, in discussing the attacks:

“Uttar Pradesh is so large, lapses can happen,” Sriprakash Jaiswal said.

at least 15 people died in varanasi alone, with many more injured. the following day the right-wing hindu political groups took vigorous advantage of the opportunity to stage a protest, calling for the resignation of the current government of india, and shutting down sections of varanasi. too bad, as the strikes prevented some from attending a dazzlingly beautiful hindu festival in which thousands of candles are set afloat on leaves on the ganges river.

so you have caught lawyers making a statement against terrorists, then right-wing and highly political hindu fundamentalist groups calling strikes against the terrorists and the government that it says is too soft on them, preventing hindu devotees from honoring their goddess ganga. and the government itself effectively calling its own territory unpoliceable - too large to prevent 'lapses.'

in the same complex that binds religious fundamentalism and politics rather tightly here in india of late, a muslim female writer has met with a decidedly mixed reception. this exceptionally outspoken woman, taslima nasreen was threatened with death by muslim clerics in her native bangladesh, after writing novels questioning women's status in her muslim culture. she had a valid indian visa, so came here to stay in the state of bengal that is adjacent to bangladesh and shares much of its culture and langauge, though the state of bengal is predominantly hindu while bangladesh is muslim. but upon arriving, she found that the communist party that runs the state was none too happy to have a prominent target of muslim ire around. (the communist party draws heavy support from the muslim population of the state, it seems.) after they succeeded in forcing taslima out of the state, the other states have been falling over themselves trying to pass her off to another state... except gujarat - a state whose government is most vocally pro-hindu fundamentalism. it seems in the delicate balancing act between the potentially volatile 'communal groups,' this courageous woman has fallen deep into the gap. some of her books, meanwhile, are banned in india.

for those who missed the ny times articles, they are still available online at this link and this one.

just to make clear, it is not all fun and games - or all elephants and relics - here.

elephants make a parade

once a year, the mula-gandha kuti temple in sarnath that houses relics of the buddha allows those relics to leave the security of its inner sanctum and circle the village. as is apparently most befitting to the physical traces of an enlightened being, the relics go forth on the back of an elephant, escorted by other elephants, marching bands, pilgrims from all corners of asia, nuns and monks with horns, with cameras, with incense and with palms together, along with the occasional government official. this year for the first time ever, they were also escorted by a much delighted mexican pilgrim named flora!

the relics kept here are said to have been unearthed at ruins in andhra pradesh at nagarjuna konda and at taxila in what is now pakistan, during the time of the british colonial government. the mahabodhi society administers the mulagandhi kuti temple, and both were foundered by the famous sri lankan anagarika dharmapala who did so much for the reservation of buddhist sites in india. the mahabodhi society somehow managed to secure for itself the great privilege of providing them with a more suitable home, and has shared that privilege with the entire village regularly since then.

in what is easily the most impressive event of the year for this dusty – if sacred – little town in northern india, the relic parade took place today. locals here kept saying that it was buddha purnima, or the buddha's birthday, a day that is otherwise reckoned to take place in april, may or june based on the lunar calendar. but in fact the relic procession is regularly scheduled for karthika purnima, the full moon day in this eleventh month of the year, when the weather in november is much more manageable - it was 75 degrees today, for example.

the largest elephant has the honor of carrying both the relics and the two VIPs who escort them, and is followed by several of its smaller brethren. the relics themselves are of course tiny and remain throughout the event in a gold container shaped like a stupa. (note if you can as well the symbol of a stupa emblazoned on the shimmery cloth draped around the lead elephant.)

no doubt about, buddha's relics and elephants together really make a parade!

no more a place

poetry remains the genre of the hour for me here. less wide-ranging but just as bound to place and to translocal moment, these lines are from arun kolatkar's poem on jejuri, a pilgrimage place i never visited when i was nearby in pune last year.

among the successes of his work is the strange wonder he can create by allowing an intimate description of the place to unfold inseparably from his distanced view of it.

he writes:

that's no doorstep.
it's a pillar on its side.
yes.
that's what it is.

and elsewhere, describing a shrine to the god maruti within the jejuri temple complex:

the roof comes down on Maruti's head.
nobody seems to mind.
... least of all Maruti himself
may be he likes a temple better this way.

a mongrel bitch has found a place
for herself and her puppies
in the heart of the ruin.
may be she likes a temple better this way.
the bitch looks at you guardedly
past a doorway cluttered with broken tiles.
the pariah puppies tumble over her.
may be they like a temple better this way.
the black eared puppy has gone a little too far.
a tile clicks under its foot.
it's enough to strike terror in the heart
of a dung beetle
and send him running for cover
to the safety of the broken collection box
that never did get a chance to get out
from under the crushing weight of the roof beam.

no more a place of worship this place
is nothing less than the house of god.

photo is not jejuri, but rather of a shrine i visited in andhra pradesh with my sanskrit teacher last year.

the ram's ultimate prayer to the tether

along paths both swift and haphazard, a few lines of christopher okigbo's verse find their way, on a smoky sunday afternoon, to the room wedged between field and household compound, in northern india, where i stay:

for we are listening in cornfields
among the windplayers,
listening to the wind leaning over
its loveliest fragment…..

and from elsewhere within the painfully slim volume of poetry he left behind:

for beyond the blare of sirened afternoons,
beyond the motorcades;
the voices and days, the echoing highways; beyond the latescence
of our dissonant airs; through our curtained eyeballs, through our shuttered sleep,
onto our forgotten selves, onto our broken images; beyond the barricades
commandments and edicts, beyond the iron tables beyond the elephant's
legendary patience, beyond the inviolable bronze bust; beyond crumbling towers...
beyond the iron path careering along the same beaten track…
the Glimpse of a dream lies smouldering in a cave, together with the mortally wounded birds.
Earth, unbind me; let me be the prodigal; let this be the ram's ultimate prayer to the tether . .

okigbo's poetry can be read online, and should be.
photo from shiftingpixel.com

locating sarnath

Sarnath, India map - Tagzania

yes that is sarnath. click on hybrid, and you get a good sense of the lay of the land here. dasashwamedh is a famous area right in the center of nearby varanasi. zoom out and you will see that we are basically right smack in the middle of the gangetic plains. yes, the river you see there is the holy Ganges.

and for anyone who has spoken with me on the phone in the month since i arrived here, you can click on where it says 'map' to see just why the train is so very audible in the background.

taking is bondage; discarding is freedom

four pratyekabuddhas were staying together in the house of a potter. thus begins not a bad buddhist joke, but a tight little narrative i have just come across in a collection of stories about nuns. it is drawn from the vinaya and retold by the great tibetan polymath buston. the potter sees the four pratyekabuddhas meditating at night, and is inspired to ask them how they came to ordain. here is their exchange:

"where and why did you ordain?"

“have you heard of king rna lag can of the kalinga country?”

“yes, i have heard of him.”

“that was me. after seeing the shortcomings of kingship, i ordained.”

"what did you see?”

“a bird was carrying meat. as it was flying in the sky, many other birds attacked it. it flung the meat away, and another bird took it. then they surrounded the one who had taken it, and stole it from him. seeing that, i had the thought, ‘taking is bondage; discarding is freedom,’ and i ordained.

making buddhas

the thai temple in sarnath has a major effort underway to build a large –a very large – statue of buddha. the work is now in progress, and indeed has been since i was here last year. across the temple grounds are scattered massive chunks of lovely pink stone, most carved smooth on one or two sides, and some still looking as if they have only just been hacked out of a mountain. only the head and feet have been assembled and lie, appropriately enough, at opposite ends of the stone sprawl. already the faithful have begun offering small squares of gold leaf to the serene face of the buddha, which sits protected by a simple tent canopy. the feet have not received the same attention, but someone perhaps with a sense for symbolism has placed the feet at the base of a shade tree.

each stone that will comprise the body now lies scattered between the head and the feet, and each piece is marked with numbers. looking at these marks, i think of the other large stone images i have seen at various sites around india, and am suddenly transported by a leap of imagination to their process of construction. i see them too, carted in in separate chunks, lain across the earth, marked according to an elaborate master plan, and painstakingly carved under the watchful eye of the master sculptor.

nearby work has begun to erect the central post – what tibetans call the life tree or srog shing – that will serve as the spine of this imposing image (see right side of photo.) this life tree is made of steel beams and poured concrete. it is around this central support that the body of this buddha will at last come together, with the joyful raising up of these now earth-bound bits of stone. from the position of these two feet, planted firmly soles-down on the earth, it looks as if this buddha image will either be a standing figure, which would make it dizzyingly tall, or perhaps another maitreya figure, seated western style. there are no thais around for me to ask about this, just an aged hindi-speaking caretaker and sculptors, so it is again my imagination that must do the construction of the final form. and that form soars up, up high above the village to survey this land where buddha shakyamuni first taught. this towering new image of buddha seems perfectly content. and it is breathtaking.

land of work, noble land

tibetans are fond of referring to india as the noble land or land of the nobles ('phags pa'i yul or āryabhūmi) whereas indians are most likely to call it the karmabhūmi - land of ritual activity or as i prefer to think of it, land of work. they contrast it with america, which they call bhogabhūmi - land of enjoyments or land of wealth. if the idea is that one puts in one's time working (or performing ritual activities) here in india and then enjoys the fruits in the states, that might seem contrary to the usual immigrant experience leaving india and going to the states. but it seems right to me as i settle in for another year of solid work on my dissertation.

begin round two

so round two begins. after a stop in delhi to be oriented by AIIS (american institute for indian studies), the extremely kind organization that is funding this second research year, my feet are firmly on the hallowed ground of sarnath.

photos are of me standing amongst the ruins of the monastic site with my friend flora from xalapa in mexico. the other is of bhikshuni jampa tsedroen, another dear friend; the stupa is behind us.

the three of us are staying together in sarnath for a few months: flora preparing for ordination and spending most of her days doing preliminary practices at the stupa, jampa tsedroen-la (who is a phd candidate at the university of hamburg) and i working on our dissertations.

coming back soon

the second year in india starts shortly. i fly back to delhi on oct 16 and will be in sarnath again by oct 19.

until the next blog entry, here is a short clip of a lama yeshe, my teacher's teacher, who passed away in the 1980s, sadly. very sadly.

one year becomes two

although my time in india on the fulbright has come to an end, i will be back next fall (oct 2007) for another year on another grant, this time the aiis. in the meantime, i will be doing a far bit of travel:

after a short trip to portland, oregon to see my teacher and friends at maitripa institute...

i will be in redlands in southern california with my dear friend karen derris,

puerto rico at ganden shedrub ling,

madison for teachings during his holiness the dalai lama's visit to my home temple of deer park

new york with family,

tibet during the month of june on a monthlong site seminar organized by princeton to visit monastic sites from lhasa out past mount kailash to the kingdom of guge... and for more on that trip, you can visit the blog of that trip

germany in july for a conference on buddhist women and a week of teachings by his holiness the dalai lama,

tuscany in august for three weeks of teachings by a tibetan geshe on a commentary on the text i am working on for my dissertation,

mexico in september visiting some old friends at buddhist centers in the yucatan, xalapa and guadalajara

back to california in october to write grant applications and then a quick trip to portland to give a talk and visit friends at maitripa

all this takes place between now and the end of october. after that i will be back with more occasional postings from the year in india that became two...

to sarnath

towards the end of my time in india, i made my way back up to sarnath. there, i began reading the text in tibetan and continuing to work in the sanskrit with Dr. S. Bahulkar, a deeply respected scholar from pune and wonderful human being, working for the next year or so in the research department at the 'tibetan university' in sarnath. here i am with sonam, a student at the university and a regular conversation partner for me.