Secularism & Inter-Religious Harmony

A few months ago, I was in Kochi in south India, where I met a guy involved in a project of cultural mapping of Fort Kochi, which looked at how people from different parts of India, as well as persons coming from other countries had settled here over a period of centuries. It mapped their residential areas, heritage sites and worship places. It was a very interesting discussion.

Afterwards, thinking about that discussion made me ask myself – 

(1) What kind of norms and rules they had in ancient India which guided the settling-down of different outside communities, to ensure harmony with the pre-existing communities already living there?

(2) Another question in my mind was – how were those old Indian norms and rules different from the ideas of secularism today?

My questions reflected the situation in Europe, where we are seeing a kind of popular backlash against immigrants and refugees. Thus, I was asking myself, can there be something we can learn from the experiences of inter-religious harmony in India?

This post is a reflection on the theme of secularism and inter-religious harmony.

Ideas of Inter-Religious Harmony & Secularism

There are some fundamental differences between the concepts of inter-religious harmony and secularism. Inter-religious harmony is about how different groups live together while secularism is a state policy. However, the two concepts are inter-related and influence each other.

Experiences of inter-religious harmony depend upon how the different groups co-exist together in the community. The old proverb, "Live in Rome like the Romans do", indicated the ideals about inter-religious harmony in the west. We don't have similar proverbs in India, becaue it was and is guided by philosophies that accepts a diversity of beliefs.

The western ideas of secularism were defined at the time of theocratic state, when the Christian church held both the state and the religious powers. Secularism's goal was to separate the religious powers from the state powers. However, today most discussions about secularism are about how the Governments deal with and treat persons of different cultures & religions among their populations. These ideas developed in the West, are today seen as universal by a lot of persons, also in India.

I feel that these two ways of thinking, the traditional ideas in India and pagan cultures about inter-religious harmony and those of the secularism, are different though we do not have a clear understanding about those differences. For example, I think that the ideas of secularism are idealistic, they are about how progressive persons would like to see multi-religious societies and are focused more on safeguarding the rights of minorities, which are seen as weak and oppressed. On the other hand, the ideas of inter-religious harmony are more pragmatic and focus on a balance of powers between the groups, in which the majorities often dominate but are respectful of the minorities.

I also think that today most well-educated persons including academics, thinkers, writers and progressives, look at events in our societies mainly through the prism of secularism. On the other hand, most ordinary persons, continue to use the lens of inter-religious harmony. In the communities, there can be a mismatch between the two.

Understanding the Norms of Inter-Religious Harmony in India

The first Christian and Jew Communities came and settled near the coastal areas of south India about 2000 years ago. When Islam arrived in the middle-east, other migrants like Parsi, Baha'i and Armenians arrived in India. Over the centuries, different waves of immigrants from India and abroad also arrived and settled here. Most of these communities prospered and with time, their numbers increased. Till a couple of decades ago, this was a dominant narrative about India, which accepted that the Indic religions were open to people of other religions and welcomed them.

During the recent years, gradually the openess and welcoming of Indic religions has been replaced with dominent narratives about "militant and violent Hinduism", especially in relation to the relations with Muslims. I think that this change in narratives does not express a real change about the way Indic religions look at different religions but has other origins.

I believe that it will be useful to understand the different ways in which the Indic religions dealt with refugees arriving in India, who belonged to other religions.

For example - what kind of rules were made by the local kings to accept the persons belonging to different cultural and religious communities, to ensure religious harmony? What do accounts of foreign visitors to India over the centuries tell us about this theme?

How are those older norms and rules, similar to and different from the ideas of secularism dominant today? I searched online but, apart from some generic mentions of Ashoka’s edict and Akbar’s rule, I could not find any academic papers or research work that looked at and analysed the older norms and rules to foster inter-religious harmony in India.

Learning from Personal Experiences of Religious Harmony

I grew up in a multi-religious environment with the idea that our religions were an opportunity to have fun and enjoy the different customs & festivals. On Eid day, our Muslim neighbours prepared sweet sewaiyan (vermicelli) and brought to us, just like on Deewali and Holi, we shared our sweets with them. On the Christmas eve, I accompanied a friend to the mid-night mass in the cathedral, while he was equally enthusiastic about playing with the colours of Holi. On the Gurupurab day, all of us woke up early to get a glass of Kachi lassi from the processions of the Sikhs.

From those experiences what lessons I can draw regarding inter-religious harmony? I think that the first lesson would be that we can have our own religious beliefs but we must have equal respect for other people to have different beliefs - thus reciprocal or mutual respect is fundamental in ensuring harmony. One sided respect, expecting others to respect your ideas and insisting that only your ideas are correct and must be applied universally does not lead to harmony. This mutual respect should be explicit - for example, it can be expressed by participating in each other's special moments such as festivals.

There are only a few countries in the world which have long histories of multi-religious societies. India is one of them where today the religious minorities are made of more than 150 million persons. Jerusalem is another city that comes to mind, which has a significant population of persons of different religions, though it has faced much greater religious strife.

The Ideas of Secularism

I think that secularism is interpreted very differently from the ideas of religious harmony that I had learned. Often, it means special protection of minorities.

I find some ideas of secularism a little problematic. For example, many believe that secularism means recognising that we all belong to different religions and we should take care to not to offend the persons of other religions by talking about our religious customs and festivals. So, you are not supposed to say “Happy Christmas” to non-Christians or “Eid Mubarak” to non-Muslims. You are not supposed to have Christmas trees in public places and are supposed to make only generic greetings like “Seasons’ greetings” to persons of other religions. I think that this way of thinking, it says that my religious identity is fragile and can be easily offended if any ideas of other religions come near me.

I think that a part of the populist backlash is because of the way some such secularist ideas have been perceived by people. Often when someone does not agree with any of these ideas, there are no spaces for dialogue and discussion as these persons insist that the only acceptable way to live is their way.

I don’t think that the cultural and religious majorities can be silenced by impositions, especially if they perceive them as unjust. Rather, it is a recipe for building rage, which can also explode in backlashes and violence. A process of open dialogue and debates around norms for inter-religious harmony are needed.

Personally, I also feel that we need to study the explicit and implicit traditional norms and rules of communities which govern co-existence of persons of different cultures and religions. It is possible that some of these norms and rules would be discriminatory, and there needs to be a discussion about them with communities. Using secularism as an ideology for protection of minorities can be imposed by law but it will not lead to inter-religious harmony.

Conclusions

I have to confess that my ideas on this subject are not very clear. This post is my way of starting a personal reflection on this theme. They are very much influenced by my growing up surrounded by persons of different religions in India, while the secular concerns dominating many of the discussions seem to me like playing games of identity-victimhood.

The ideas of secularism are relatively new while for centuries people of different cultures and religions have inter-mingled and lived together. India has many examples of inter-religious harmony going back to hundreds of years. We should not ignore the lessons from those experiences. Secularism should not become a way to protect the fundamentalist and ortodox ideas of some.

I believe that there is a need for serious studies to understand the kind of strategies used in different epochs in India and in other parts of the world, that allowed long periods of inter-religious harmony and compare them with the modern ideas of secularism, to look at their differences, similarities, challenges and advantages. Such a critical dialogue will be critical for mixing of people in the globalised world.

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Note: The pictures used with this post are from an exhibition of globes in old Jerusalem, a place where Jews, Christians, Muslims and Baha'i have their holy land and where inter-religious harmony faces a lot of challenges.

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#interreligiousharmony #secularism #india #jerusalem #secularism 

When One Religion is Not Enough

Duane R. Bidwell’s book “When one religion isn’t enough: The lives of spiritually fluid people” (Beacon Press, Boston, US, 2018) is about persons who feel an affinity with more than one religious tradition. In this post I look at some of the ideas of this book. 

Growing up in India means growing up together with persons of different religions – India is the original multi-religious country. Often persons growing up in India can have different religions in their family histories and thus accepting different religious traditions is quite common. Duane is from a Protestant Christian background and his approach to looking at multi-religious identities seems more analytical, compared to the emotional approach I had while growing up in India.

About Duane R. Bidwell

In the book, Duane defines himself as: “I am Buddhist and Christian. Jesus is my savior, and the Buddha is my teacher … I am a minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA), part of the Reformed tradition of Christianity … I am more apt to feel tearful or joyful when chanting at the temple than when I am worshipping in church. Buddhism changes the way I know and experience God. It broadens and deepens my understanding and experience of Christianity … I identify as Buddhist/Christian because that’s what I understand God to be asking of me. I’m not worried about salvation, and I don’t mind incompatible doctrines.”

Different Approaches to Multi-Religious Identities

Persons like Duane, come from traditions that believe in one prophet or a “true God”, and when they find themselves attracted to different religious ideas, they need to find a logical explanation for their ideas. It is very different from the way I look at it, I don't need any explanations for it, it seems like a self'evident truth.

Thus, in the initial part of the book Duane raises some questions and his understanding about God:

How and why does someone become spiritually fluid? Are spiritually fluid people simply confused, syncretistic, unable to commit? Are they idolaters? How should we make sense of spiritually fluid people? Do they belong in our religious and spiritual communities? What might they teach us? And what do complex religious bonds imply about our own religious and spiritual identities, practices, and commitments?… I do not believe that God is one or that all paths reach the same mountain. Religions are not different descriptions of a single reality; they describe different (and sometimes related) realities.  
I was a little shocked when I read what Duane says here - "I do not believe that God is one or that all paths reach the same mountain." I think that a person who believes in there being different Gods for persons of different religions would look at persons having multiple-religious beliefs very differently from a person who believes that roads lead to the same God - these would be two very different ways of looking and understanding religious beliefs.

Different religions originated in India including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism – together these religions are called the Indic religions. In the Indic religions, we often say that God is one and all the different paths (religions) lead to that same ultimate truth.

Duane’s analysis of spiritual fluidity

Duane uses the term “spiritual fluidity” for persons having an affinity for more than one religion. He explains that people can come to this state of fluidity due to different events in their lives:

Normal spirituality believes in religious monogamy; people must leave one religion to cleave to another, taking on a new name, a new identity, a new set of beliefs and social mores. The old life is gone; a new one begins. But some people claim two (or more) religions at the same time. Maybe they belong to a Christian church and practice Buddhist meditation, or they grow up with a Jewish mother, a Hindu father, and an extended family that doesn’t expect them to choose one tradition or the other. Or they might publicly identify as Muslim while secretly praying to Hindu gods … it can confuse and perhaps threaten people who have only encountered singular religious and spiritual identities … More often it leads to conflict in families, communities, institutions, and individuals.

The problems in families and communities caused by belonging to multiple religious identities can lead to hiding of the true feelings – thus persons may outwardly show their beliefs only in their family or community religion, while hiding their feelings about their other spiritual beliefs:

Spiritually fluid people seem exceptional because cultural conversations in North America, Europe, and parts of the Asia-Pacific region position them that way. Public conversations tend to frame spiritually fluid people as privileged, subversive, or both—an attitude that keeps religious multiplicity out of the public eye … First, academic discourse tends to frame religious multiplicity as exotic, elite, and rare and therefore distant from what most think of as ordinary. Second, because it can be dangerous to violate family, community, and institutional expectations of normal spirituality, some spiritually fluid people—especially those bonded voluntarily to two or more traditions—fail to identify publicly as religiously multiple.Much of this (academic) writing assumes a normal spirituality, especially the ideas that (a) religious traditions have clear boundaries, (b) religions are primarily focused on doctrine, and (c) conflicting spiritual or theological perspectives must be reconciled. … Ordinary people who live religiously multiple lives are seldom celebrated and often unseen. They hide their multiple allegiances from family members who will not tolerate someone practicing a different faith; they mask themselves in one or more of their religious communities to avoid shame, judgment, punishment, or other negative consequences; and they switch from one type of religious language to another, depending on context.

Duane acknowledges the different approaches to "spiritual fluidity" among different cultures. Thus, while persons raised up in monotheistic religions feel the contradiction between the doctrines they have learned from childhood and their attraction to other spiritual ideas, indigenous persons growing up with more open traditions in Asia, Africa and South America do not always see any contradiction. Thus, in countries where monotheistic religions dominated, in the past, spiritual fluidity often had to be hidden. This may still happen to some degree.

Jewish families in Spain and Portugal converted to Catholicism to save themselves from the Inquisition but continued Shabbat rituals in secret, and Buddhists in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) converted to Christianity to qualify for stable, higher-paying jobs but still participated in ceremonies at Buddhist and Hindu temples. In North and South America, governments insisted that indigenous nations “civilize” themselves by becoming Christian, a policy that made indigenous people hide their spirituality beneath a veneer of church language and practice … “The problem with Indian Presbyterians,” one denominational executive said to me more than a decade ago, “is that they want to be Indian and Presbyterian at the same time.”Outside the North Atlantic region, religious lines aren’t always so sharp. European missionaries encountered this porosity as they began to evangelize people in various regions of Asia. When Catholic priests arrived in India, for example, the emperor Akbar delighted the Jesuits who came to convert him. He assured them that he had indeed become a Christian—and then infuriated them by continuing to worship as a Muslim and, in many ways, a Hindu. This multiplicity was not what the Jesuits had in mind at all and is yet another incident that reveals how Europeans regarded the boundaries between religions as impregnable, whereas Indians saw the lines as rather porous.

Sometimes people adopt dominating religions because these allow them freedom from religious persecution or access to education, mobility and resources. Yet, at the same time, they may continue to believe in their ancestral beliefs, though they may hide these beliefs from their new religious companions.

Today’s complex religious belonging also reflects centuries of Christian expansion beyond Europe. Through encounters with local spiritualities and other religious traditions, Christian missionaries have seen spiritual fluidity as an option for centuries. Those sympathetic to local religions, like Ruben, sometimes developed spiritually fluid ideas, practices, and identities. At the same time, local residents forced or persuaded to convert to Christianity might continue to practice their original religions in secret. Other local people converted (or added Christianity to their mix of spiritualities) because of the link between Christianity, social mobility, and economic privilege. By adopting strategic multiplicity—performing Christian norms in public while practicing original traditions at home—local people gained access to otherwise unattainable economic and social goods.

Over the recent past, in India, there have been a lot of debates about religious conversions and many persons ask for strict laws to stop induced or forced conversions. However, Duane's point is that conversions can be a way of creating multiple religious identities and thus act as bridges between religions. Thus to safeguard cultural unity of persons, it may be a better strategy for Indic religions to continue to be welcoming to the converted persons, so that they can acknowledge both their religious identities instead of being forced to give up their original religious identity.

Interfaith Families and Their Children

In his book, Duane also touches on issues related to the interfaith families and children of these families who grow up surrounded by different religious traditions:

Many people who inherit complex religious bonds grow up in an interfaith family. They have a Jewish mother and a Christian father, for example, and grow up attending church and synagogue. Others might have a Christian mother and a Hindu father and refer to their family religion as Chinduism. Still others are raised by parents of two religious traditions, with aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins from several other traditions. 

Duane shares different life-stories of persons to explain the complexities in dealing with spiritual fluidity. One of these stories is of Sita, a Caribbean immigrant to Canada, which raises the issue of fitting different religious identities in public and private.

Until Sita started school, she thought every home honored Jesus and Hindu gods at the same time. “As I got older, I became more aware,” she remembers, “kind of realizing: Oh, OK, the Christian part is the part that fits in with society, the part I can mention in school. The Hindu stuff is the stuff I keep to myself ... I remember in school, if people asked, ‘What did you do on the weekend?,’ I felt comfortable saying we went to church. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable saying we went to puja, which is one of the words for prayer gatherings in the Hindu faith. So I just sort of instinctively learned to hide it, because it wasn’t—because if I had said it, they wouldn’t have known what I was talking about.

Conclusions

A few years ago, I had thought of conducting a research with interfaith couples to understand how they reconciled their religious differences, especially in terms of religions of their children. However, after some initial work I had given up that idea as I wanted to do other things. However, I think that if I had done that book, I would have approached this subject very differently from how Duane's has done it. Till some years ago, I had a t-shirt that I had bought in India, which showed symbols of different religions and carried the words, "God is too big to fit in one religion" - to me, those words are a better expression of how I look at multiple religious identities.

When I started reading this book, initially I was a little frustrated by the gap between my own emotional approach to spiritual fluidity compared to the analytical approach adopted by Duane. Before reading this book, I had looked at spiritual fluidity as exclusively a positive value, while I had ignored that for some persons, it can be a challenging path. I am glad that I persisted with the book and I think that I have gained some new insights from it.

I believe that in future with increasing international travels of persons from different countries, the encounters between persons of different religions and interfaith marriages are going to increase exponentially. At the same time, with a decrease in the controlling power of traditional religions, increasing number of persons are going to experiment with and adopt spiritual ideas from different traditions. Such mixed couples and their mixed families can help in building bridges between the people.

I think that Governments should document and valorise these multiple identities. For example, in the national censuses, instead of assuming that persons belong only to one religious traditions, countries should provide specific options for persons with multiple religious identities. Learning about different spiritual beliefs, celebrating all the different religious festivals, can be a way to promote peace and brotherhood in the 21st century. Duane's book provides important reflections and insights on this crucial subject.

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Basvanna to Sankardev - Poet Saints of India

From ancient times, India saw a steady stream of social reformers. These included persons like Buddha and Mahavir in the pre-Christian times. Starting from 6th century CE for more than a thousand years, India saw a number of social and religious reformers who expressed themselves in devotional poetry, often wore the saffron cloth of the renunciation, and wandered around composing and singing songs of divine love, spreading messages of human dignity and equality. These reformers are often called the Poet-Saints and their movement is known as Bhakti-movement (Bhakti = Devotion).

This post focuses on two such poet-saints – Basvanna in Karnataka and Srimanta Sankerdev in Assam, and their profound and lasting impact on the society.

The Religious Belief Systems in India

Like other ancient religions in the world, what is today called Hinduism, did not divide people into “believers” and non-believers”. These terms were introduced by Abrahamic religions in the middle-east, which insisted that their prophet was the only true messenger of God and only their religious path was the right way to worship.

In Hinduism, there have been and there continue to be different streams of beliefs, that sometimes separate from each other, sometimes ran parallel and are sometimes mingle and conjoin. They all accept that they are flowing from the same source. On one hand, the Vedic streams of Hinduism are associated with the sacred fires of Yagna and see God as Onkar, the infinite formless consciousness that permeates all the universe. Then there are Puranic streams, with their multiplicity of gods, especially the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva along with their respective consorts, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati.

The different poet-saints of the Bhakti movement, were followers of these different streams of Hinduism. Many of them were followers of Shiva or Krishna. However, some of them also sang of the formless infinite God. Today some persons consider the followers of some poet-saints, such as those of Guru Nanak, Ravi Das and Kabir, as specific and separate religions. In my opinion, such considerations are influenced by the Western thinking, which is reductionist (looks at bits and pieces composing something) and prefers to categorize on the basis of differences. At other times, these considerations focusing on differences are linked to political and cultural struggles of these groups. However, personally I consider them as the multiple streams of Hinduism.

Bhakti Movement and Poet Saints

The earliest recognised poet-saints of the Bhakti Movement composed and sang their prayers in Tamil language in the 6th - 7th centuries. These were the devotees of Shiva, the Nayanars. They challenged the caste system and asked for a world of love and selflessness. Then there were Alvars, devotees of Krishna, starting from the 8th century.

The names and compositions of around 80 Tamil poet-saints (including both Nayanars and Alvars) are known. From Tamil areas, over the centuries this movement spread to the rest of India.

Then for almost thousand years, different parts of India saw these wandering mistrals, singing about casteless societies and divine love. Most of them wrote their songs in common local languages and many of them came from the so-called “lower castes” and humble backgrounds. They sang about divinity, promoted equality and at the same time, initiated a literary and cultural renaissance.

There were many women among them including Karaikkal Ammiyar, Tilakavatiyar, Andal and Madhurakavi Alvar in Tamil, Akka Mahadevi in Kannada, Gangasati in Gujarati and Meerabai in Rajasthani, who gave a message about the dignity and equality of women.

In north-west India, the Bhakti movement coincided with the arrival of different Muslim dynasties. It influenced them as well, giving rise to some Muslim poet-saints who followed the Bhakti tradition (Ras Khan and Rahim Das). It also influenced the wider Muslim community, especially through its interactions with the Sufi traditions.

Chronology of Indian Saint Poets After 1000 CE

A chronological-geographic analysis of the most well-known poet saints of India after 1000 CE shows the following names:

12th – 13th century: Basvanna, Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi in Kannada; and Jaidev in Odishi

13th – 14th century: Namdev and Gyaneshwar in Marathi; Gangasati and Narsi Bhagat in Gujarati; and Ramananda in Hindi

14th – 15th century: Bhagat Pipa in Rajasthani; Guru Nanak in Punjabi; Purandhar in Kannada; Ravi Das and Kabir Das in Hindi

15th – 16th century: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Bengali; Shrimanta Shankerdev in Assamese; Vallabhacharya in Telugu and Hindi; and Meera Bai in Rajasthani.

16th – 17th century: Kanakdas in Kannada; Eknath and Tukaram in Marathi; and, Ras Khan and Rahim (Abdul Rahim) in Hindi

17th – 18th century: Vijay Das in Kannada; and Ram Prasad Sen in Bengali.

Poets in the above list classified under "Hindi language", include those who used its regional variants such as Braj bhasha, Khari boli, Avadhi and Maithili.

As the list above shows, the Bhakti-Saint reformist movement covered the whole Indian sub-continent and its different linguistic groups. The similarities of their messages and of the Gods they were worshipping illustrates the civilisation unity of India. 

Next, I want to talk about the legacies and continuing impact of two of these poet-saints with whom I am more familiar: Basvanna and Shrimanta Shankerdev.

Kannada Poet Saint Basavanna or Basveshwara

12th century Kannada poet-saint Basava, commonly called Basavanna or Basavanneshwara, composed songs known as Vachanas, filled with devotion for Shiva, which spoke against caste and gender discriminations. He was a minister in the Kalachuri dynasty of Kalyani. His followers are known as Lingayat or Virashaiva.

Along with other Kannada poet-saints including Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi, he established a prayer and discussion centre called Anubhava Mantapa (in the image below), where both men and women of different castes were welcome to participate in philosophical and religious discussions.

His teachings are still followed by a large number of persons in Karnataka. His statues are common in the villages along with those of Ambedkar. In Basvan Kalyan in Bidar district of Karnataka, where the Anubhava Mantapa is located, a shrine of Basavanna has been built with his giant statue (in the image near the top). The image below shows him in princely attire.

Assamese Poet-Saint Srimanta Sankardev

The 15th century poet-saint from Assam wrote his devotional poems to Krishna in Assamese, Sanskrit and Braj bhasha (a dialect of Hindi) and had a tremendous impact among the Assamese people. Like Anubhava Mantapa in Karnataka, Sankardev (Shankerdev) is associated with religious and philosophical centres called Sattras. Apart from his devotional poems, he popularized traditions of Sattriya music, dance and theatre. He also promoted simple living, gender equality and casteless society.

His impact on Assamese society continues to be very important. Different Sattras are spread all over the state, the most important being those in Majuli island. (In the image below, a Satra in Guwahati)

Millions of his followers believe in simple life and prayers. For example, they have simple marriage ceremonies without exchange of money or costly gifts. For the prayers, they have Namghars, where the followers meet regularly, sing kirtans in front of book Bhagawat Purana (image below).

To Conclude

The singing and wandering poet-saints of India, over a period of about a thousand years, campaigned for gender equality and casteless society, though in vastly different ways.

Many of them were devotees of Shiva, a God associated with detachment, destruction and rebirth, and characterized by the ashes of cemeteries, snakes and a rag-tag group of followers including those who drink alcohol and use ganja or other drugs. Some Shiva stories also include bhoot-pichash (ghosts and demons) among his followers.

Others were devotees of Krishna, a God associated with the sermon of Bhagvad Geeta and also with the escapades of a naughty cowherd’s boy, known for his love for Radha.

I think that by choosing Shiva and Krishna as their personal gods, the poet-saints were moving away from the Rules and Obedience-based ideals of the Indian society, and promoting a more just and inclusive social system. They were also asking for more humane figures of gods, that were more accessible to people compared to the formless and infinite God of Vedas. (In the image below, a bass-relief of Shiva and Krishna from Shankerdev Kalakshetra in Guwahati)

They did not manage to banish the gender and caste-based discriminations all over India, though as the above examples from Karnataka and Assam show, they did have an impact on millions of people. Their influence was not limited to the different streams of Hinduism, but also had an impact on the different syncretic traditions of India including the Muslim Sufis.

Today we live in a different world. Though the Baul singers of Bengal and Assam can be seen as a part of the on-going tradition of poet-saints, they are more community-based, their names are not so well-known and their social impact is much smaller. However, in future the rise of the YouTube culture may spring surprises with new social-media poet-saints who are recognised in different regions and can spread the message of an equal, just and inclusive society -for transforming India. At least, I hope so!

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#poetsaintsofindia #basvanna #srimantasankardev #anubhavamantapa #namghar #sattrya 

Sun-Rise At The Shore Temple

Shore temple of Mahabalipuram is a magical place, especially early in the morning as the sun rises over the Bay of Bengal and illuminates the early 8th century structure.

I had reached Mahabalipuram around noon and passed the whole afternoon looking at the rock-temples at the area known as Arjun’s Penance. By the time, I reached the Shore temple, it was evening and the entrance to the temple was closed. So, I decided to stay overnight in Mahabalipuram and made the plans for getting up early on the next morning to visit it. I am so happy that I made that decision because that early morning visit was truly magical.

History of the Shore Temple

In 700 CE when Rajasimha Varman became the king of the Pallava empire with its capital in Kanchipuram, the empire was nearing the end of its power. Over the previous centuries, his ancestors had built the seafaring empire with their ships going up to Rome in the Mediterranean. In the 6-7th centuries, the Pallava kings had built a large number of sea-facing rock-temples on the granite hills of Mahabalipuram.

Rajasimha ruled for 28 years and is credited with the building of the shore temple. Two new Shiva shrines were built around an older statue of reclining Vishnu. After Rajasimha, the power of Pallava kings gradually declined and in the 9th century, the area came under the Chola empire.

4 Shrines of the Shore Temple

The Shore Temple is composed of 4 distinct shrines – an eastern facing Kshatriya Simheshwar temple dedicated to Shiva; a western facing Rajasimheshwar temple also dedicated to Shiva; a partially open shrine surrounding the older statue of reclining Vishnu between the first two temples; and, an open-air step-well Shiva shrine to the north.

When I visited it, the eastern sea-facing Shiva temple was closed for repairs. Even the shrine to the reclining Vishnu was closed.

I could only visit the smaller west-facing shrine which has a central bass-relief panel depicting a family portrait of Shiva, with his consort Parvati and baby Ganesh between them, while their two older sons, Kartikeya and Skand stand behind.

On the north, the fourth shrine is located at a lower level with the steps going down. It has a hole where once there was Nandi’s platform, and then a Shivalinga, while Nandi’s statue lies close to the back wall. Since it was an open-air shrine, so probably they had made it at a lower level, to provide shelter from the wind.

Temple Complex

Entrance to the Shore temple is on the west where the ticket office is located about 200 metres away. The temple is located on a land jutting into the sea and the surrounding area has been landscaped.

As you walk towards the temple, you come across two stone platforms. Usually, in the temples, there is one platform with the animal representing the vehicle of the principal deity. Perhaps, the two platforms in front of the Shore Temple indicated that the temple had two main deities (Shiva and Vishnu), though now both the platforms have lost their statues.

Behind the two front platforms was the platform of the flag pole and a tiny Gopuram with steps going down towards the temple.

The outer wall of the temple complex was lined with a row of sitting Nandi bulls. After a corridor, there was an inner wall which had bass-relief panels showing Hindu mythological stories.

There was another Nandi placed above the entrance to the west-facing shrine. Thus, the whole complex very clearly underlines its affiliation to Shaivism.

Narsimha Stautes in the Shore Temple

The whole area also had many statues of another animal – the Narsimha lion, that looked like a sabre-toothed tiger. The image below shows a Narsimha niche with an Apsara on his right shoulder placed facing the sea, probably used for keeping a lamp as a light-house for the sea boats. Narsimha statues clearly represent the king during whose reign this temple complex was built. Thus, I wonder, if the Apsara could have been a representation of his queen or may be a family deity?

The image below is another representation of the Narsimha on the temple walls. There are many of these. I am not sure if there are other examples of Hindu temples where the king’s symbol is shown in such a prominent manner and so consistently.

The sea air with its humidity has affected everything in the Shore temple complex. Thus, most of the sculptures have lost their details.

Sunrise at the Shore Temple

When I reached the Shore Temple, it was still dark and there was no one else. Going around in the morning stillness was almost like a meditation. After about 20 minutes a few other persons came. On the other hand, the beach to the south of the temple, was already full of pilgrims in their red clothes, taking bath and selfies in the morning sea, with a few tourists clicking their pictures.

As I walked around, slowly the darkness receded and a sleepy baby sun peeked from behind the dark clouds on the horizon. To see the sun come out slowly and climb up in the sky till it was shining behind the shikhar of the temple, like a naughty boy playing with a mirror, was a moment of pure bliss.

Youth Follies

The first time, I had been to Mahabalipuram was in 1977. At that time, I had only visited the Pancha Ratha area. At that time, from the Pancha Ratha, you could walk towards the Shore Temple along the sea because there were no protecting walls or other buildings between the two. However, then I had thought that the shore temple was just an old ruin and not worth a walk.

This time, older and wiser, I spent the whole morning at the shore temple. It was an amazing visit and I will cherish the memory of this visit.

To Conclude - Sabrimala Judgement

Let me conclude this post with something completely different. The image below has a group of Sabrimala pilgrims at the smaller Shiva shrine of the Shore temple in Mahabalipuram.

A few days ago the Supreme Court in India has made a judgement about the entry of women of child-bearing age to the Sabrimala temple. I am not a religious minded person, I have never been to Sabrimala and I have no plans of going there, as my interest is more in spirituality. However, I feel that SC’s decision is a mistake.

I believe that parliaments and courts have a role in ensuring that our religions do not violate the fundamental human rights. If some practices are systematic, then we should look at them critically. However, I don't think that special rules for one individual temple violate the human rights of faithful, it is not a systematic discrimination. Such differences are a part of the richness and diversity of Hinduism, common in the way the religious faiths are lived in India, especially for the Indic religions. Insisting on eliminating that diversity of temple practices and promoting uniformity of the religious practices is a loss for humanity and it means accepting the views of fundamentalists who ask for narrow definitions of the religious practices.

If it was a common practice for all temples of the Sabrimala sect, even then, within the wide variety of Hindu religious practices, I feel that this diversity would be valuable to maintain. Only if it was a common practice in all Hindu temples, then it would be a systematic exclusion, which would need to be challenged.

I hope that the SC judgement about Sabrimala temple will become an opportunity for people to reflect on the richness of our cultural and social diversities of Hinduism and Indic religions and find meaningful ways to safeguard this heritage for the future. If we cancel our diversities of practices, then we lead to a monoculture of faith, which are contrary to the idea of Hinduism, even if fundamentalists would like to have such a world.

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#shoretemplemahabalipuram #mahabalipuram #shoretemple #hinduism #shaivism #shivatemple

Indian Understandings of God

Probably no one can tell when and where did the prehistoric progenitors of humans first thought of God. However, by early historical period, all the human civilizations had some concepts of God. Those civilisations were very different from each other, but the concepts of God they developed were similar. However, around 4 thousand years ago, ancient Indians developed an additional concept of God that was slightly different from the other common concepts. This post is about the evolution of the God-concepts in ancient Indian religions (Indic religions) including Hinuism, Jainism and Buddhism.

Before talking about India, lets first take a look at how different civilisations thought of God.

From the “Sacred Nature” to the “Gods Governing the Nature”

Around the world, the first concepts of God were of deities represented by and governing specific aspects of nature. This way of imaging the God still exists in many communities. It considers as sacred the objects of the natural world. Plants, trees, stones, mountains are seen as manifestations of God and worshipped. The image below has sacred trees (India), trees under which people may place a statue or a stone and worship it as a symbol of God.

Other people imagined God as human-like beings with supernatural powers who controlled specific aspects of the nature. Thus, they had a god for the rain and another for the sea, a god for the war and another for love. From the Amerindians to Romans, Egyptians and Persians, every culture had their pantheon of gods and their stories of creation. The word Pantheon comes from a building in ancient Rome which had all the different Roman deities to which they worshipped. The image below has some of the Indian gods in a temple in Bangalore.

The one God

The ideas of one God arose in the Middle-East, among the Jews, Christians and Muslims, though we had a brief glimpse of this idea during the reign of Akhneton, the Egyptian Pharoah, many centuries earlier. Each of these religions linked it with a specific prophet, and each group claimed that their path to God was the only true one.

This God was imagined as a “benevolent father” – who was merciful and loving, but he asked to be worshipped regularly and properly. He also laid down a set of rules for his followers, including rules about dressing, eating, praying and resting. If you did not follow his norms, he could also punish. He did not like and thus refused to tolerate that people follow other “false gods” and prescribed different roles for men and women.

These concepts led to the birth of the three organised religions that are also known as the Abrahamic religions - Jewish, Christianity and Islam. Among these, Christianity and Islam became actively proselytising, going out to convert persons of other religions, because they felt that it was their sacred duty to save the souls of others who were on a wrong path and were going to finish in hell.

James A. Michener in his 1965 book “The Source” has beautifully described the evolution of the concept of one God in the middle east, leading to Jewish religion, Christianity and Islam.

Evolution of the God concepts in ancient India

What about the Indians? How was the evolution of the God-concept in India? Ancient Indians had many different ideas about God – considering nature as sacred, having a set of divine human-like beings with special powers and having a father-like God. However, they also went a step further and thought of God as “Parmatma” or the “Universal Consciousness” that underlies every particle of the universe.

Another unique Indian feature was that all these different ways of conceptualising God co-existed. One idea about God did not replace the other ideas, instead Indians sought explanations that could justify each way and look at them as “different paths” to reach the same eternal truth. This was necessary because geographically Indian subcontinent is a huge landmass, for most of its history sub-divided into kingdoms, that changed boundaries and alliances across the centuries. Thus religious ideas were not marked for their differences, but rather, they sought explanations which helped them to be perceived under one over-arching umbrella.

The first Vedas, the earliest texts of Indians about the divine, were written around 2000 BCE, that means around 4000 years ago. These books presented all these different concepts of the God. This colourful mosaic of belief systems, sometimes contradictory, constitutes Hinduism and its other Indic religions, including Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism (though individuals who have learned to see the world under the lens of monotheistic religions, tend to focus more on differences and try to separate each sub-group and divide them into sects and separate religions).

Examples from Vedas to illustrate different ways of conceptualising God in the Indic Religions

Vedas use different words for God such as, Ishwar (Lord of the desires), Parmatma (ultimate soul) and Brahman (universal consciousness).

(1) The first example is a shloka (verse) from Atharv-veda (11-7-21):

It says: “Red earth, sand, stones, medicinal plants, creepers, blades of grass, clouds, lightening and rain, they are all interconnected and are all based in the God.”

While considering everything in the universe to be interconnected, it also explains the sacredness of nature. A couple of years ago, while on a walk in Guwahati in the north-east of India, I had met a Sadhu Nobin baba, who had talked to me about the calming of mind till you could feel the energy coming out of some points of the rocks. For him, that energy coming out from the earrth and rocks and which he could perceive, was the God (Nobin baba in the image below).

(2) The second example is a shloka from Rig-Veda (1-164-46):

It says: “Some call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna or Agni, for some he is a bird with beautiful wings; Agni, Yama or Vayu, all represent the same truth called by different names.”

This shloka explains how the different divinities worshipped by people are all expressions of the same God.

(3) The next example, also a shloka from Rig-Veda (10-82-3), describes the God as a father-figure, closer to the concept of God in the Abrahamic religions:

It says: “God is our father, he gives birth to us and controls us. He knows this and all the other worlds. All the different gods are part of him, all the worlds go to him with their questions.”

Thus in this verse, God is a father. However, instead of saying that other gods are false, as in monotheistic religions, here there is an explicit acceptance of praying to other gods, since they are all understood to be the expression of the same God.

(4) The last example is a shloka from Yajur-veda and is about God as universal consciousness:

It says: “Searching for the truth, the sage went all around this and other worlds, went in all directions and even to the land of gods. He found that everywhere there was the same all-pervading truth. After knowing this, he became part of that truth and then understood that he had always been a part of that truth.”

This way of describing God as an all-pervading presence in both animate and inanimate world is the unique feature of the ancient Indian thought. It denotes the presence of God in all its creatures and thus becomes the logic for respecting life and nature in all its forms. It is a call for recognising the dignity and equality of all human beings.

The concept of Universal Consciousness and India’s Social Realities

I love the concept of universal consciousness, that everything in the world is interconnected and expression of the same God. However, I also wonder, why in spite of such an inclusive thinking, did India develop a social reality marked by caste hierarchies that exploited and oppressed millions of persons?

Through the centuries, there were many social reformers in India, from Buddha to poet-saints such as Basvanna, Meera, Kabir, Rahim and Nanak to social reformers like Mahatma Gandhi, who promoted equality of all human beings, but they did not manage to demolish this system. Why?

Perhaps one of the answers to this question lies in the words of a 15th poet-saint Kabir who had written that: It is not by reading of books that one gains knowledge; only when you learn love, you become knowledgeable. Our communities have this age-old knowledge, but perhaps it is seen as an abstract concept and not as the living truth? Or, perhaps for most persons, the abstract concept of God as an all pervading consciousness is too difficult to understand and follow, and they feel more secure in thinking of God as a specific deity or a father-figure who can help them or punish them?

I want to conclude this post with a picture from Kannur in Kerala in the south of India, in which a person from a "lower caste" gets ready to welcome the God (Theyyam) in his body. For the few days of the temple festival, his caste will not matter and everyone in the community will bow before him, looking at him as the manifestation of God on earth.

Our challenge is how to change our thinking so that we can first see the God in all the persons and all the God's creatures, big and small.

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#god #prophets #religions #hinduism #india #veda #sacredbooksofhinduism

Hanuman, the Legend of the Ape God

As a child growing up in Old Delhi (India) in early 1960s, for me sometimes the people from the ancient Hindu stories were as real, or perhaps even more real, than the actual people around me. Children's magazine Chandamama, Ramlila performances in the DCM grounds and recitations of Ramayana by visiting brahmins in the street-square near our home, had all contributed to make me familiar with the characters of Ramayana, including that of Hanuman ji.
 
Hanuman is one of the most loved Hindu deities in India. He is considered the symbol of valour, loyal service and self-control. For adolescents and young men, he is considered as the patron of Brahmcharya (celibacy) while reciting his prayer called Hanuman Chalisa is suppose to provide the believers with courage and overcoming of fears.

In this post, I want to present some of my favourite images of lord Hanuman from different parts of India, along with different stories linked to this god. The first image presented above is from Karol Bagh in Delhi, where the giant statue of Hanuman rises next to the metro line, juxtaposing the old mythologies with the modern India.

Hanuman stories in ancient Indian texts

The oldest mention of Hanuman is in Rigveda, where he is called Vrishkapi, the Vrish ape. Besides the Hindu texts, he is also mentioned in Jainist and Buddhist texts. The stories of Hanuman can traces their origins to the ancient prehistorical oral traditions of India. Along with the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism in the far east, the legend of Hanuman also spread to countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The figure of Sun Wukong (ape king) in Japanese mythology is very similar to Hanuman's story. The same Sun Wukong myths had also inspired the recent Chinese film "The Monkey King", in which Sun Wukong takes birth from a divine crystal which falls on the mount Huaguo.

The second image of Hanuman is unusual since it presents a giant green coloured statue from the Trimurthi temple in Kanakpura on the Bangalore-Mysore road in Karnataka.

Legends about the birth of Hanuman

There are two main stories linked to the birth of Hanuman. In one, he is the son of the wind god Vayu and thus, is called Vayuputra, and is born with the gift of flying. In the second story his father is an ape called Kesari (Saffron). Even in this story, Vayu, the wind god plays a role in Hanuman's birth and is thus considered his guardian.

Another legend about baby Hanuman is that once he thought that sun was a fruit and wanted to catch it and eat it. Sun allarmed, asked for help from the god Indra, who used his Vajra (thunderbolt) to stop the baby. Because of the Vajra, baby's jaw became more prominent, giving rise to his name Hanuman (prominent jaw).

The next image has Hanuman as a chimaera, a combination of different human and animal beings expressed through his five heads and ten arms.

Hanuman and the stories of Rama of Ayodhya

In the popular imagination, the figure of Hanuman is closely linked to that of Rama. Most statues and images of Hanuman present him as a Ram-bhakt, like in the image below where he is shown holding a tiny statue of Rama in his hands.

In both Valmiki's Ramayana and in Gosain Tulsi Das' "Ram Charit Manas", Hanuman first appears in Kishkindhakand chapters of the story, when the two brothers, Rama and Lakshman, searching for Sita, reach Rishyamook mountain where the Ape king Sugriva lives. When Sugriva sees them, he gets afraid, and asks Hanuman to go and find out about their intentions.

In Valmiki Ramayana, the whole episode is longer and is written in Sanskrit, while In Ram Charit Manas, it is much shorter and is written in Avadhi. In Valmiki Ramayan, Hanuman is presented first as Sugrivasachiva (सुग्रीवासचिवाः), Sugriva's commander. The next verse presents him by his name, Hanuman:

ततस्तं भयसंविग्नं वालिकिल्विषशडिन्गतम्
उवाच हनुमान्वाक्यं सुग्रीवं वाक्योकोविदाः

(To Sugriva who was afraid of Bali, the clever and articulate Hanuman said.)

In Ram Charit Manas, Hanuman is introduced in the story when Sugriva speaks to him:

"अति सभीत कह सुनु हनुमाना, पुरुष जुगल बल रूप निधाना
धरि बटु रूप देख तहँ जाई, कहेसु जानि जियें सयन बुझाई"

(Afraid Sugriva said: Hanuman, they are two strong men, go to them dressed as a Brahamchari (celibate) and try to understand about them)  

Gosain Tulsi Das is also credited with the prayer of Hanuman Chalisa (literally, "forty verses of Hanuman"), which is supposed to infuse people with courage and remove their fear. Below is another figure of Hanuman showing Rama and Sita in his heart.

Hanuman as the patron of healing herbs

During the war between Rama and Ravan in Ramayan, there is an episode where Lakshan is injured gravely and to cure him Sanjeevani booti (life-giving herb) is needed urgently.

Since Hanuman has the gift of flying, Rama asks him to go to Meru mountain and bring the herb. Hanuman, unable to identify the herb, decides to bring the whole mountain. This episode is also very popular in the Hanuman statues as shown in the image above (from Tezpur, Assam) and below (from Gangtok, Sikkim).

Metaphysical meaning of Hanuman

 In Hinduism, meanings can be understood at different levels. Thus, for common people, Hanuman is a deity, whose help they can ask for. At the same time, often the old stories have deeper metaphysical meanings in Hinduism.

For example, according to the Vedbhashya blog which looks at correlations between Quantum physics and ancient texts of Hinduism, the original story of Vrishakapi (Hanuman), is a metaphysical description of an atomic force binding the central nucleus to the sub-atomic particles moving around.

Personally, I love the way different animals and plants play a central role in different stories of Hinduism. Apart from Hanuman, a Garuda eagle called Jatayu also plays an important role in Ramayana. Two gods, Ganesha with an elephant head and, Narsimha, a half lion and half human incarnation of Vishnu, are other examples of animal-human relationships in Hindu mythology. I think that this way of looking at nature is important to promote ecological sustainability of all life on earth.

The image below presents another unusual Hanuman, where he is shown older and with a rudraksh-mala around his neck, like an ascetic giving his benediction to his followers.

Conclusions

The image below presents a tiny temple of Hanuman along the banks of Ganges in Varanasi, which has an unusual sleeping Hanuman statue.

To conclude this photo-essay about Hanuman, the last image is from a Ramlila procession in Chandani Chowk in old Delhi. The image shows the carriage of Hanuman with his Vanar sena (monkey army). The person who plays the role of Hanuman is Mr Ram Chander, a devout follower of Hanuman who has been playing this role for more than a decade.

To write this post I went through my huge image archives. I was surprised that I had so many images of Hanuman and it was not easy to choose the images for this post. I had great fun in selecting these images and in writing this post.

Do tell me which form of Hanuman ji out of the ten images presented above, did you like most?

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Shrines & Temples of Ushimado

The tiny seaside town of Ushimado in south-west Japan is famous for its beautiful sea and verdant islands. It is also a heritage town with glimpses of the old Japan of wooden houses and traditional shrines and temples.

In Ushimado you can see three small islands close to each other. At low tide you can walk from one island to the next and this passage is called the Kuroshima Venus road. You can admire those 3 islands in the image above.

Ushimado and the legend of Ushi-oni

There is a legend of a monster called Ushi-oni, who looked like a cow. Empress Jingu came here disguised as a man after her husband died. She met the monster and killed it. Different parts of Ushi-oni fell in the sea around Ushimado forming the different islands. The original name of Ushimado was Ushimaro - Ushi (cow) + Maro (killed). This legend is celebrated in the Ushimado shrine in the city.

During the Edo Period (1603-1868), Ushimado was a ship-building town and was used as a resting point by Korean Royals on their way to Edo.

Reaching Ushimado

Ushimado comes under Setouchi in the Okayama prefacture. It is about 30 km from Okayama. You can take an Ako line train from Okayama, get down at Saidaiji or Osafune and then take a Ryobi bus to Ushimado.

At Ushimado, I stayed at hotel Limani. Looking out at the beautiful islands and the sea was an incredible wake-up experience, as you can see from the image below.

Ushimado Lighthouse

The lighthouse of Ushimado, is a traditional wood tower with a pyramidal roof and it is mounted on a square stone pedestal (image below). In the image below, you can see as it appears from the sea.

HonRenJi Buddhist Temple

One early morning I explored the main street of Ushimado called Shiomachi Karakoto. The Kaiyu museum was closed but just behind it, I found an ancient temple - Honrenji. It was built for welcoming the Korean visitors and is considered a cultural heritage site.

A Koromon (gate) marked the entrance of the temple. The main entrance led to a big wooden building, probably the Butsu-do, the Buddha hall.

Majority of temple structures were in wood. The buildings had huge curved roofs, almost as big as the rooms below. To the right, stairs led to a terrace overlooking the sea with some more temples.

There was a 3-storied Daito (large pagoda) on the terrace close to the edge overlooking the sea. Each part was made in rectangular form with wooden fenced balustrades. There was a mokoshi (skirt-shaped) roof on the lower two levels and a pyramidal roof on the top floor.

Next to the Daito, there was a massive bell tower with a stone and a rectangular wooden base, on which which a big copper bell was mounted, covered by a beautiful curved roof.

Behind and above the temple there was a cemetery area. Being early morning it was very quiet and peaceful. The different temple buildings were closed, still I really enjoyed this visit.

Tenjin Shrine and Tenjinyama Tumulus

This is a Shinto shrine at the top of the hill above HonRenJi temple. It is dedicated to Tenjin, the god of scholarship.

Tenjin was a 9th century poet called Sugawara no Michizane, an important official in the imperial court of Emperor Uda. After the death of the emperor, he was exiled and died as a lonely man. Seventy years after his death, Michizane was deified and became Tenjin. His shrines were built in different parts of Japan. The legend says that he had visited Ushimado during exile and cried on the top of this hillock.

Long stairs along with a Koromon gate led to the shrine. The main temple was closed. On the left, there were Inari shrines marked by vermilion coloured Torii gates. One Inari shrine was full of Kitsune (white foxes), the messengers to the god Inari. Inari gods are linked with rice-crop and fertility. Kitsune were shown with their right front paw raised up to protect an urn, and each had a golden round tablet in the mouth.

At the bottom of the hill, there was a tall brick tower covered with creepers in an ancient looking courtyard. I could not find out the significance of this tower. Nearby there was a more recent iron tower with a weather-wane.

Kompira-Gu Kou Shrine

This was another Shinto shrine at the top of a hillock. Kompira-gu is a god of the sailors. Kompira shrines were originally made by Shugendo sect in Kotohira mountains of the Kagawa prefacture and are also called Kotohira-gu. Outside its closed latticed doors there were banners of rope and straw.

The views of the sea, islands and surrounding Ushimado were beautiful from this shrine.

Sai Ichi Inari

This Inari shrine was on the main street of Ushimado, behind a house, where a row of vermilion Torii led to small shrine. Praying to this Inari was supposed to grant you a long and happy life. A holy person from Fushimi Inari in Kyoto had established this shrine in Ushimado.

A Buddhist shrine and the cemetery

One evening while walking to the back of the hill of the Tenjin shrine, I came across another Buddhist shrine linked to a cemetery. This shrine had seven carved stones, all wrapped in red wool-covers. The central stone had a bigger statue of Buddha. Behind the Buddha stones, there were seven round stones.

This shrine was close to a Buddhist cemetery with tombs scattered along the hill at different levels.

Conclusions

Today most cities of Japan look very European. However, Ushimodo has still many places where you can see the old Japan and its traditions. For example, the image below shows an old well of Ushimado and a couple of shrines close to it.

I want to conclude with another image from Limani hotel where I stayed. This image shows the hotel swimming pool with the sea just beyond it.

I was in Ushimado for a meeting on conservation of history of leprosy, invited by the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation.

I could not visit many tourist places in Ushimado such as the Kaiyu cultural museum, Maejima island (Green island) and the Olive Gardens. However, this visit gave me an opportunity to see and appreciate the traditional Japanese houses and some of their traditional temples and shrines. At the same time, it was a beautiful place with incredible sunsets.

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