Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 12:09
Our room at the Shree Ganesh Guest House in Mount Abu is unremarkable, a little on the small side, a little careworn and suffering from the strong smell of stale pee emerging from the attached bathroom. But it enables us to meet Lalit, so its' failings are easily forgiven. Lalit's father owns the Shree Ganesh and a whole clutch of family members work there, but it is Lalit who makes our stay so special.
It is hard sometimes to avoid cynically posing yourself the same question over and over again, 'What's in it for him?' as someone offers help or assistance. I asked myself the question shortly after arrival as Lalit gave me a lift down to the train reservation office to arrange our onward travel out of Mount Abu, and it led me to ask him whether I had already paid for his time in the 580 rupees I paid for two train tickets from Mount Abu to Mumbai. The warm smile that accompanied his reply that there was no charge made clear that this wasn't about money.
Lalit offers us places on his Temple Tour and we sign up. At nine the next morning six of us climb into the Mahindra land rover and set off along roads that are busier than usual because today is a bank holiday to mark the anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, but the traffic, both on the roads and in the temples proves not to be a problem.
We first visit a temple in a cave; 'discovered' in the 15th century (having, by implication, appeared miraculously rather than having ever been constructed) says Lalit with a twinkle in his eye, striving to preserve the mystique that is a key part of legend-laden Hinduism. We progress to a temple where we are reverentially shown the small pot in which it is said that Shiva's toe dwells, anchoring Mount Abu to terrafirma.
But these are mere anti-pasti. We move on to a Jain monastery, not on any tourist itinerary but Lalit knows the monks and likes to offer a context within which to the Jain temples that we will visit next. It is purely by chance that we are able to visit the monastery, Lalit stops these tours once the high season kicks off on 17th October when the roads and temples become jammed with Indian tourists.
We take off our shoes and enter a very plain, cool room. A mattress in one corner on the floor and a small metal chest with an alarm clock on it are the only furniture and on the mattress in a pristine white robe sits a Jain monk, early 40's, hair to his shoulders, a welcoming smile on his broad face, waiting to answer our questions.
The Jain faith is based on 5 principles:
Non-violence: which, for some adherents, involves carrying a very soft brush used to sweep their path so as to avoid treading on any insects and/or wearing a cloth over the mouth and nose in order that germs expelled when breathing do not harm another creature. In addition to not eating any animal products Jains do not eat any root vegetables believing that, for example a potato, contains an infinite number of lives because if you cut it in two and plant both parts two plants will grow, if you cut it in four, four plants will grow etc etc.
Non-attachment: To people or things. For monks this means a life without possessions and that if a family member visits their departure must not be a cause for sadness as this would indicate a degree of attachment.
Do not lie: A Jain must not tell a lie unless the lie will achieve a greater good. So if a Jain is out walking and sees a deer he may deny having seen it to the huntsman who asks, in order to save the deer.
Do not steal
No Sex: For monks this is a literal instruction. For other Jains this, as well as the other four principles, are all ideals which they must come as close to fulfilling as possible, for example, restricting themselves to sex for procreation.
The Jain community is very successful in business and the monk's opinion is that this is a reflection of the integrity inherent in adherence to the principles.
It is easy to think that the principles require an abandonment of emotion, a requirement to feel nothing. But what is fascinatingly apparent as the discussion progresses is that the very opposite is true, for in order to establish a degree of non-attachment a person first has to acknowledge all of their feelings and then manage them in order to transmute them into another way of living.
Similar to Buddhism Jains perceive 14 levels of consciousness, the 14th being a state of godliness. All humans exist at the 6th level but may move higher through the practice of yoga and meditation. Jains recognise only one image of god, Shiva, sat cross-legged, in the style of Buddha but slimmer and with Asiatic eyes. Each Shiva image bears on its' pedestal the motif of one of the 24 tirthankaras (literally crossing-makers, great thinkers who have influenced the religion). Each tirthankara represents different facets of godliness.
Despite? No, because of his austere way of life, rising each morning at 4am and spending the day in meditation and prayer, the monk is one of the most obviously happy, peaceful people I have ever met and our time with him greatly enhanced our appreciation of the Dilwara Temples which we reached in just five minutes drive from the monastery.
The town of Mount Abu is something of a disappointment. At 1400m altitude it offers us the cooler mountain air we have been craving so desperately but it is a place that middle-class Indians go on holiday and bears a striking resemblance to Blackpool what with its' swan shaped pedalos on the mountain lake and cheap souvenir stalls. But if I passed nearby again in the future I would not hesitate to make the hour long ascent by bus up the sinuously curving road clinging to the mountainside to see again the Dilwara Temples.
Places of worship often tend to use scale as an indice of devotion, bigger being better. But none of the many huge cathedrals, temples or mosques that I have previously visited have communicated as effectively as the relatively small Dilwara Temples such an exuberantly joyful celebration of faith.
The two biggest of the four temples are identical in layout. We enter over a large marble threshold, through a pair of stout wooden doors and find ourselves in an enclosed rectangular compound measuring maybe 20 by 40 metres, with the longer sides running away from the entrance.
Around the perimeter lie 48 identical vestibules, each closed off by a pair of small slatted doors through which are visible a Shiva image. Each of the 24 tirthankaras is represented twice. The cloisters running around the perimeter in front of the vestibules have low ceilings and are raised three steps above the floor of the temple which is open to the sky in the small space not occupied by the broad covered pathway leading from the entrance to a large open-sided cupola which in turn gives onto the entrance to the main temple, a small cruciform building containing a large Shiva image. The layout creates an atmosphere of enclosed tranquility.
If all this sounds prosaic what renders it unimaginably beautiful is that every square inch of available space is composed of intricately carved white marble.
One small cupola amongst the cloisters might include 15 Shiva images amongst 3 different motifs each repeated maybe 100 times within a space with a diameter of 2 metres at the widest.
Columns, cupola's, cross members, every inch is used to depict important characters and stories set amidst detailed motifs and the layer upon layer of detail leaves me at first dizzy and breathless then awe-struck at the magnitude of the craftsmanship and the cohesion of the almost infinite detail to create a space so peaceful and serene. Everything here is ordered and there is much, purposeful, repetition. Motifs are clustered together but also recur along receding sight-lines, repeating like infinite mirror images disappearing into the distance.
Because of the huge contrast, obvious order here, apparent disorder there, I find myself thinking of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. A massive cathedral, as yet unfinished, open to the skies, its' huge spires and facades covered in carvings and an overall design of curvaceous madness, but a place where the massive scale left me feeling that it was beyond the power of my brain to encompass it all. Here at the Dilwara Temples the scale is quite within my grasp and it is exactly because I can fully comprhend what is in front of me that the effect is so overwhelming.
As a perfect end to a perfect day Lalit takes a group of us on one of his sunset walks. We set off, Sausage having checked with Lalit that the route is not too arduous, and climb steadily through rocky, shrubby terrain before a final, hand-over-hand clamber that would have obliged Sausage to stay at the guest-house if she had known it was coming. All of which enables us to sit on the top of a large smooth egg-shaped outcrop looking out over the plains of Gujarat and watching the sun slowly dip behind the hazy horizon.
On the summit of the mountain (Sausage's words) we tell the Kabadi story again and Lalit waits until Sausage is at a particularly perilous point of the descent, sliding on her bum down a near vertical piece of smooth rock towards Lalit's helping hand, before he starts chanting 'KabadiKabadiKabadi' making Sausage laugh so much that she loses all the strength in her muscles and can only cling onto the rock face quivering with laughter and near hysteria.
Sausage always says that behaviour breeds behaviour. We saw it in Pushkar where we brought our supplies from a really friendly shopkeeper who wasn't pushy in the slightest, which forced the shopkeeper opposite to compete on friendliness and so we would walk down the street with cheerful hellos ringing in our ears instead of the usual pushy imprecations to 'Just look, no buy.'
So it is in Mount Abu where, suffused with Lalit's gentle humour, a group of 10 or so drop our guards and while away the night with beers and silliness. Trucho the tall bearded Spaniard with the deep voice reveals under interrogation that his name means 'male trout' and under fierce cross-examination finally cracks revealing that his real name is Ignacio and he chooses a new name every day dependant upon his mood, a thought that we kicked and dragged all over the place in the midst of the usual hilarity at us being 'the Sausages.' And it was good to meet Ed and Tony, two Australians doing almost as much damage to the average travelers age as the two of us. The next day Lalit took us down to the bus stand and we said goodbye to the unimpressive town in a fantastic setting brought to life for us by a remarkable man.
The war against terrorism is probably much easier for us to bear than for you at home. Here we get very little news and what we do hear reassures us that we do not face any substantial risks. I much prefer our position to being at home bombarded day after day with a never-ending, repetitious barrage of the same news changing only slowly, incrementally, but always nagging away in the background. But then I would say that, wouldn't I? All of which is intended to assuage any concerns about our well-being. We're fine, and any problems seem, and indeed are, many hundreds of miles away.
Anyway, we're in Goa now and the story of our journey here and what has happened since our arrival will follow as soon as the sun fails to shine..... could be a while....
'Til then, take care.
Those of you going to David and Martin's party tonight, have a fab time, and
a jump about for Sausage and I. We'll have a sundowner for you..
Lots of Love
The Travelling Sausages
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