Buddham sharnam gachchami - A Buddhist Journey

Recently, during a journey in Israel and Palestine, I was reading John Power's book "A bull of a man: images of masculinity, sex and the body in Indian Buddhism". It made me reflect about Buddhism and other Eastern religions. The idea of writing this photo-essay with images from different countries linked to Buddhism, came while I was reading it.

The title of this post, "Buddham sharnam gachchami" refers to a Buddhist prayer and it means, "We refuge in Buddha".

The above image of a monk is from Ulangom in Uvs province of Mongolia. I love the strong red background of this image.

In this photo-essay, I have organised the images according to countries and let me start with India, where I had my first contacts with Buddhism when I was a child.

India

My first memories of Buddhism are linked to Boddh Vihaar on the banks of Yamuna river in Delhi. My aunt used to live on Ram Kishore road next to I.P. college in the early 1960s. During holidays at her house, we sometimes walked to the river across the Grand Trunk road. In my memories, at that time it was a small road with little traffic. Across the road was a sandy expanse leading to the river.

Boddh Vihar (literally "house of Buddhists") was a small unpretentious building at that time.

During late 1970s, when I was doing internship at Safdarjung hospital, with my friends, we often took the Mudrika bus to go to the Tibetan shacks that had come up next to the Boddh Vihaar, to eat steaming bowls of noodles.

I went back to that place a couple of years ago. It has changed completely with big roads, busy traffic, new inter-state bus terminal and buildings. The river seems far away and hidden behind the buildings. The next image of Buddha is from the Boddh Vihaar, that also has a new and bigger building now.

The next image is of Garuda, the giant bird from Hindu and Buddhist mythology. The spread of Hinduism and Buddhism in east Asia had taken Garuda to other countries. It is also the name of Indonesia's national airlines. It is usually depicted with blue horns and a humanoid body. The most famous Garuda in mythology is called Jatayu in Ramayana, who tries to stop Ravan, the demon king, from kidnapping of Sita.

Another childhood memory linked to Buddhism is from Birla temple in Delhi. My school was next door to the temple and during lunch break, often we took our lunch to the temple. One of my favourite places there for eating lunch was under the elephant statue near the Buddha shrine.

Foreign tourists often stopped to take our pictures while we ate. Sometimes, women sat near us under the elephant to get their pictures taken. I wonder if our pictures were used as examples of "those poor malnourished Indian kids"!

Often I wandered inside the Buddhist shrine to look at Buddha's life story painted on its wall. The elephant in the dream of queen Maya and prince Siddharth's encounter with the sickness, old age and death, had deep impact on me.

Recently, I was back in Birla temple to revisit those childhood memories and was shocked by the locked gate that separated the rest of the temple from the Buddha shrine. To visit the shrine, you have to come out of the temple. The wall paintings were dark and worn while the tiny golden Buddha of the shrine was closed behind a grimy glass wall. I came back saddened by this visit and so I am not presenting any image from that shrine.

Instead the next two images of Buddha are from the Cottage Industries emporium and the new airport in Delhi.

Mongolia

I had some of my more profound encounters with Buddhism in Mongolia. During one of my first visits in Mongolia in early 1990s, I remember the Gandan monastery in Ulaan Baatar as a forgotten place reduced to ruins. Mongolia had just come out of the communist rule and India had sent a Buddhist monk as its ambassador to Mongolia.

During a more recent visit, I found the place completely changed with a restored giant Buddha statue with striking blue eyes, and the courtyard full of Buddhist monks and colourful stupas. The next two images are from that visit to Gandan.

However, my most beautiful encounter with Buddhism in Mongolia was in Ulangom in the north-western aimag (province) of Uvs. A delegate of Dalai Lama had arrived and a meeting with Buddhist monks and general public was organised. The next two images are from Ulangom.

Thailand

Between 2007 to 2009 I visited Thailand a few times. These were opportunities to visit the numerous Buddhist temples and shrines in Bangkok. The next three images are from those visits.

The next image is from a shop selling Buddhist and Hindu statues in Bangkok. In Thailand, icons from these two religions are sometimes found side-by-side. I love this image because it seems to be telling a tale about the increasing pollution of our cities, so that even Buddha is forced to cover himself to avoid breathing those noxious fumes.

I also visited the ancient city of Ayutthaya once and loved its ancient temples with their evocative ruins. The next image is from this visit.

Vietnam

Like Mongolia, in the 1990s Vietnam had also come out of communist rule that had discouraged the role of religions in the society. Thus, there are not many ancient Buddhist places to visit, though some of them have been restored over the past 2 decades. Stupas in Vietnam, like the one from the ancient city of Hue in the image below, seem very different from the Mongolian stupas. Buddhism in Vietnam also has frequent references to to the phoenix, which I have not seen else where.

One of the ancient Buddhist temples in Vietnam, Ninh Phuc pagoda near Hanoi, has also been restored and peopled with monks. The next four images are from this pagoda.

I had also visited Buddhist temples in India, Nepal and China, but these visits were before I had found my passion for photography. So they are not represented in this photo-essay.

Italy

The last and the only non-Asian country in this photo-essay is Italy, with a Thangka exhibition in Bologna, showing Boddhisattva tales.

A Bull of a Man

John Power's book "A bull of a man: images of masculinity, sex and the body in Indian Buddhism", is about male gender role in Indian Buddhist writings and art.

"Gender" is about defining and building of male and female roles and norms by the society and the culture. Usually gender studies have focused on female roles and norms, and there is hardly any works on male roles and norms in Asia. Thus, Power's book is unusual in that sense. Here is a glimpse of the kind of issues the book touches on:

"In contemporary Western popular culture, the Buddha is commonly portrayed as an androgynous, asexual character, often in a seated meditation posture and wearing a beatific smile... Buddhist monks, such as the Dalai Lama, have also become images of normative Buddhism, which is assumed to valorize celibacy and is often portrayed as rejecting gender categories... In Indian Buddhist literature, however, a very different version of the Buddha and his monastic followers appears: the Buddha is described as the paragon of masculinity, the “ultimate man” (purusottama), and is referred to by a range of epithets that extol his manly qualities, his extraordinarily beautiful body, his superhuman virility and physical strength, his skill in martial arts, and the effect he has on women who see him..."

Reading the book made me think about my own attitudes to spirituality and sexuality. Even if I do accept the role played by sexuality in ancient India, as demonstrated by books like Kamasutra or temples of Khujraho and Konark, I think that my feelings about spirituality are dominated by ideas of celibacy and renunciation of worldly pleasures. Thus, reading about sexuality and Buddha made me feel vaguely uneasy.

Power touches on the reasons of this unease in his book:

"Why has the supremely masculine Buddha depicted in the Pali canon and other Indic literature been eclipsed by the androgynous figure of modern imagination and the ascetic meditation master and philosopher of scholars? Part of the reason probably lies in the backgrounds of contemporary interpreters of Buddhism and the blind spots that every culture bequeaths to its inhabitants...

... most modern scholars of Buddhism were born and raised in societies in which Judeo-Christian traditions predominate, and even those who are not overtly religious have been influenced by them. The great founders of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions — Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad — are not, as far as I am aware, portrayed as paragons of masculinity, as exceptionally beautiful, as endowed with superhuman strength, or as masters of martial arts..

If one compares the way the Buddha is portrayed in Indian literature with descriptions of Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad, a number of striking differences appear. Abraham and Muhammad were chosen as prophets by God, but their exalted status was not a recognition of their spiritual attainments over many lifetimes, as with the Buddha; rather, Abraham and Muhammad were chosen because they were chosen. God designates some as his messengers and then provides them with missions, but a buddha becomes a buddha by consciously pursuing a path leading to liberation and cultivating a multitude of good qualities over countless incarnations in a personal discovery of truth..."

The question in my mind is, have we in India (and other countries) become estranged from our own traditional ways of thinking, which accepted human sexuality as part of life and of spirituality? Are we influenced by dominating Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions of the Western academics? Is that why recently there was so much rage against the sexual imagery in Wendy Donninger's The Hindus?

The figures of Buddha, Boddhisattvas and Jataka stories touch unabashedly and lustfully on sexuality in Power's analysis. I found the book very refreshing and thought provoking.

Let me conclude this photo-essay with another of my favourite pictures. I found this statue of meditating Buddha draped in yellow silk in Ayutthaya (Thailand) absolutely amazing for its colours and feelings of serenity.

Usually my photo-essays are about images. This one is a little unusual because the written part is as important as the images. I hope that it will make you think!

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The mountain of God - Ramallah

Palestine is divided in two parts - "West Bank" bordering Jordan and the Dead sea and "Gaza Strip" facing the Mediterranean sea. In the West Bank, Ramallah is probably the most important Palestinian city. Recently I had an opportunity to spend a couple of days in Ramallah. This is a photo-essay about Ramallah, literally the "Mountain of God".

Introduction

Before going to Ramallah, I had only heard about the city when they talked on the TV about some event in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, the images of Ramallah in my mind were of boys waving flags or people shouting slogans behind the funerals of persons killed by Israeli shootings.

Therefore, I was not prepared to see Ramallah as a beautiful city with beautiful houses as you can see in the picture below with an overview of the city.

I did not visit the old city. However, even in the new part of Ramallah, the central part is relatively old, and is like any other Arab city with lively streets, people buying and selling things, persons selling and eating snacks and people sitting with friends and gossiping.

Over the past few years, Ramallah has expanded for many kilometres beyond the city centre with new buildings, new residential areas and new commercial spaces gleaming with steel and glass like the Ramallah towers and the Ramallah Trade Centre in the images below.

In the city centre, there are two main squares - Manara square and the clock square. Manara (lion) square has a central round-about with statues of 4 lions and a central pillar.

The clock square was called so because it had a clock in the centre. This was replaced some time ago by a new monument which has a man climbing towards the Palestinian flag and symbolizes the Palestinian struggle for nationhood. This square is now called Yasser Arafat square.

The image below presents the Palestinian Parliament building. In 2006, after Hamas had won the elections, there were disagreements between Hamas and Fateh. Since then, West Bank is under Palestinian authority (Fateh) while Gaza is under Hamas. Thus, at present, Parliament building is not being used. Recently, Hamas and Fateh had a meeting in Gaza during which they have signed an agreement for holding the elections within 6 months. Hopefully, the Parliament building in Ramallah will become active once again.

The Palestinian love for colours is seen in the wall paintings.

However, the modern buildings can also present wonderful views through reflections in the glass walls.

I saw some political graffiti on the high walls built by Israel near the Qalandiya check-point that controls the passage between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Yasser Arafat continues to be remembered as the national icon by the Palestinians. The mausoleum with his tomb is situated just behind the presidential palace.

Ramallah is full of roads going up and down the hills. Sometimes, there are stairs connecting roads at different levels.

To conclude this photo-essay, here is an image of the mosque at the Arafat mausoleum.

Conclusions

Before going there, I had only seen images of Ramallah with conservative Muslims and angry youth. Due to those images, I was a little afraid of going there. Thus visiting Ramallah was a surprise.

Recently, I had read an article by an Indian journalist called Zahir Janmohamed where he had talked about how journalists can perpetuate the stereotypes about persons and places, and justify it by saying that public wishes to read only that kind of information. While visiting Ramallah, I could understand the point made by Zahir.

Ramallah is a vibrant, living place with real persons who have complex lives. Presenting them exclusively in terms of Israel-Palestinian conflict or in terms of conservative Islam, reduces them to uni-dimensional stereotypes. I hope that this photo-essay gives you another view about life in Ramallah.

One of my most beautiful memory of the stay in Ramallah is about listening to the early morning azaan by the muezzin, who had a wonderful voice. I wish I could have recorded that call, but it was not loud enough for recording. As I lay in the bed, I could feel the waves of that sound surround me and touch my heart!

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El Mina, the sea port of Gaza

I am in Gaza city in Palestine, and I am staying in an apartment in front of the sea port of Gaza called El Mina. This is a photo-essay about the Gaza sea port.

Stories about the sea port in Gaza go back to antiquity.

The port is like a "T" with the long vertical leg jutting out from the coast into the sea. As you enter the port, there is a monument with a round globe at the top. It has some names at the base along with the Turkish and Palestinian flags. It was built by Turkey to commemorate the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara and activists who had tried to force through the Israeli blockade of the port in May 2010.

As you walk down the vertical leg of the T, on the right side there are red-roofed sheds for the fishermen.

At the end, where the vertical leg of the "T" meets its horizontal leg, there is another monument that I call Aeroplane monument. It looks like the front motor of a fighter plane, set in the centre of a round-about. (PS: My friend Adriano told me that it is the propeller of a ship and not the motor of an aeroplane!)

A few days ago, one early morning, before 6 AM, I went down to take a walk at the seaport.

It was absolutely marvelous. There were few people and boats were coming back with the fish they had caught. In the boats, men sat around sorting the fishes and putting them in plastic crates. Other men took the crates and piled them in carriages run by horses to distribute them in the city.

Parallel to the vertical leg of the "T", there is another thin strip of land going into the sea for the bigger boats. A truck had brought a new boat and was putting it down.

Cats and young children from poor families with plastic bags stood around the fishermen, waiting for fish scraps.

If they came too close, the fishermen glared at them and they retreated. But the fishermen were not too hard on them. Every now and then, someone took pity on the cats or the kids, and threw a torn or headless fish at them.

The horizontal leg of the "T" on the left, it continues with the beach of Gaza. On the right side, it goes and ends suddenly in the sea, creating a small bay. If you stand at the tip, in a distance you can see the long chimneys of some industrial plant spewing smoke in the sky. Those chimneys are on the Israeli side of the border.

On the skyline of Gaza, you can immediately see the new and the beautiful Abdul Aziz Khalidi mosque, built by a rich Palestinian, who lives just across from the mosque, in the memory of his father. Next to the mosque is the "Beach camp" or the Shati refugee camp. They are widening the road along the seacoast of Gaza with money from Qatar, so soon, the Beach camp will disappear and hundreds of families living there will be shifted to the south of Gaza city.

As the sun came up, I walked to the tip of the land that protects the port. There I met an adolescent boy called Mohammed, whom I asked to take my picture. Soon we were joined by a group of his friends who all surrounded me. “I am Hindi” I said, and suddenly we were friends, many of them smiled. I already knew that in Palestine, they do not understand if you say "India", for them India is "Hindi" or "Indi".

Bollywood is well known in Palestine and many persons have told me about their love for Indian films and how these make them cry and how much they like Amitabh Bachchan!

At the port, in the morning most persons are male, you hardly see any women or girls. Children are every where, some playing and others working.

That morning walk, it was a wonderful experience.

I was back at the port, one evening as well. In the darkness, it was quiet and peaceful.

It is beautiful to wake up in the morning and see the boats come alive and see the sky change colours. In the evenings, often I sit in the balcony with a book and look at the sun going down and the persons walking around the port.

Here are a few images of the morning and evening at the port, taken from the apartment.

As I write this post, occasionally I glance out of the window at the port. Today, dark clouds are hanging low and the water has a silvery-leaded sheen. It is deserted. Except for an occasional boat that leaves a soundless trail on the water, it can even be a painting that I am looking at.

Last night it had looked so crowded but then it was the Friday night! On Friday evenings,  the seaport is like an ant hill, full of people, more persons joining them from all the sides and cars blocking the road, parked till the end of the tip of the port.

The picture below, shows the apartment building on the right, where I am staying.

To conclude this photo-essay, here is another image from my early morning walk at the port of Gaza.

The word "Gaza" brings on images of Palestinian struggles with bombs and wars. In these days, I have met so many Palestinians who seem tired of wars and bombs and who dream of decent lives for their children. This post is dedicated to them.

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