Bylakuppe!

Hey all,

So, this past Saturday Dad and I woke up at 7AM and wandered about Kushalnagar until we found a place to eat (our hotel doesn't do breakfast) and had delicious porri for breakfast. We checked out of the hotel at 9AM, right when Chosang and Rinzin showed up to take us around Bylakuppe (Chosang also went into the hotel and recovered some money because they had overcharged us by about 300Rs. for the room [so the room cost 450Rs ~ $10 for two people for a night ^_^]).

We then entered Bylakuppe and began touring around temple, starting with a stop down the hill from the "Golden Temple" which is the one mentioned in guidebooks that talk about Bylakuppe. It was a spectacular view over a field of corn and a road lined with trees that all had huge prayer flags on them. From here we proceeded on into the actual temple complex.

Just walking up to the Golden Temple was amazing. The place is ornately decorated and brimming with color. While Dad and I took pictures and chatted with Rinzin, Chosang wandered off to find a monk to open the temple for us. It consisted of 4 stories, of which I believe only the bottom is normally open to the public. A monk let us in and we started on the 2nd story of the temple, which contained a massive golden statue (which I don't understand the religious significance of) and the walls were totally covered with paintings that had intricate details down to the size of my thumbnail (this is a constant through all the temples. Massive, colorful rooms with mindblowingly detailed decorations covering every inch of the walls. Beautiful.). At every temple, when you enter there is a small ritual: putting your hands together, touching your forehead, lips, and chest, then getting on your knees and touching your forehead to the floor. This is repeated three times, then you only do the touching of the hands to forehead, lips, and head and you are finished. It is the most active sign of religious devotion I have ever engaged in, though I can't say that I ever felt particularly moved.

The 3rd and 4th story were designed similarly to the 2nd (and, it turns out later, the 1st) in that they contained a massive golden statue in the center (the statue on the 4th floor is of Buddha).
We always moved through the rooms clockwise (down for you physicists), which is something common to both Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist temples. (Later, when we were being really formal, we also stepped out of the temple walking backwards and being careful not to actually step on the threshold of the temple). To understate things completely, this temple and all of the ones we saw were *astoundingly* beautiful (like a certain person I know who's name starts with an E ^_^).


We saw a huge amount in Bylakuppe, so I will compress it down quite a bit. It was a really wonderful experience ^_^. After floors 2-4 of the golden temple we came down and saw some exhibits, around the 2nd floor, of the Tibetan Buddhist depictions of an equivalent to hell ("were sinners go")! I didn't know such a thing existed, and it was pretty incredible to see. We then continued on to the temple next door that was again huge and beautiful and contained 3 massive (at least 5 meters tall) golden statues of Buddhist sages and Buddha. We then continued on to the very pretty neighboring garden, and went to see Thubrig's son. Thubrig is the brother-in-law of Chosang and the friend of another Tibetan that is a good friend of my Dad's. Thubrig's son is about 10 years old and came to India a couple of years ago to become a monk at the Golden Temple. He was fairly shy, but Dad got some good pictures of him to take to Thubrig.

After visiting Thubrig's son we saw a *massive* (~2-3 meter tall) prayer wheel (massive barrel filled with the various mantra's and prayer's from the Darma, the Buddhist holy book. When the wheel is spun the prayers go up to heaven, or at least that is the general idea), then proceeded to the outside wall of the temple complex. The *entire* wall around this massive complex consists of smaller (~.5 meter tall) prayer wheels, occasionally interspersed with rooms that contain half a dozen more massive prayer wheels. We walked around a good portion of the outside wall spinning the wheels, which was a really cool experience. We then walked up and down a line of 16 monoliths just inside the wall that represent 16 great Buddhist teachers, followed by walking 3 times around another monolith that was somehow (I didn't understand how) special and had lots of other people walking around it (clockwise, of course).

Incidentally, when I seem to sound knowledgeable about things, then switch to saying that I don't understand, it is usually because I wasn't able to understand an explanation of things offered by Chosang or Rinzin or they couldn't understand my question. However, despite the language barrier we managed to have very nice conversations with them, either chatting about Rinzin's schooling or the family life, or being informed about the significance of the things we were seeing. Speaking of Chosang and Rinzin, I would like to underscore how incredibly generous and kind they were to us. They took a day that they had off of various work commitments to take two people that they had never met around their community. This next story illustrates this aptly. As we were leaving golden temple complex (after having seen the 1st floor of the main temple), Dad asked about the "Medicine Buddha", which he is interested in. This didn't translate all that well, but just after he asked Rinzin disappeared for a while. She came back as we were exiting the complex with a small plastic bag filled with what looked kind of like coffee beans. Apparently they are the Rempoche's (overseer of the temple) special medicine to help to recover from illness, and are not very easy to come by! This was something that we were offered just because Dad mentioned something about medicine!

The final cool thing that I will mention about the Golden Temple complex was that there was a moss-covered rock outside the Golden Temple that was carved into a miniature version of another temple complex: the one in Tibet that the Golden Temple was based on. The tragedy here is that the temple in Tibet no longer exists: it was destroyed by the Chinese, probably during the Cultural Revolution.

After the Golden Temple we had lunch (Tibetan putta [a soup] and cowmein [I wanted to try momo, but they didn't have any]), bought some prayer flags (if you write your name, or really the name of any person or group on them then that person/group will be helped at every step in their future), then visited Ngagyur Nyingma (yay for taking pictures of signs) Nunnery, which was much smaller, but still *spectacular*. Also, being a nunnery, there were nuns instead of monks here, which was something I did not know was endorsed by Buddhists (I think there are probably differences between different groups). After this we proceeded to the Sera Jey Monastic University which was again massive and spectacular. I am running out of words to describe these places, so I will simply say where we went, note some interesting facts, and post the pictures as soon as possible (though a lot of my pictures failed to come out :-(, I'll get some from Dad). The cool fact about Sera Jey was that about *four _thousand_* monks were there. And this is only one of 8 temples, and not the largest! This gives you some idea of the size of this community of exiled Tibetans (this is one of two areas given to them by India when the Dali Lama first fled Tibet).

The next temple on our route was Sermey Dratsang Cultural Society, which had *unbelievable* wall hangings and weavings hung everywhere. The common theme in the artwork here is *incredible* detail, lots of color and gold. This temple also had 16 paintings (8 on either side wall) depicting 16 great Buddhist sages, the same 16 that were represented by the monoliths at the Golden Temple. Finally, one of the main statues in this temple was of the Medicine Buddha, and there was also a mandala for the Medicine Buddha (a small scale house, completely made out of gold that depicts (as do all mandala when the word is used in this sense) the world according to the Darma of the Medicine Buddha.

The next monastery, Nalanda, was the newest that we saw. There were several beehives on the front of the temple, which apparently show that the temple will grow and prosper. The other cool thing in this temple was that Chosang had helped to install some of the stones in the goldwork around the central idol in the temple.

At the next monastery we actually saw a bunch of monks in the middle of prayer and meditation! They were chanting in the main temple and we still went in and looked around! (This was the place where we were a little more formal about what we did). I took a short video of them chanting and will see if I can post it. This monastery also had a really big school out back (all of the monasteries had an attached school), and there was also a guy who would pray for things you asked him to (with the length of the prayer proportional to the amount you paid him).

The next monastery only had a single monk that was praying (and would later lead others in prayer) in a back room and beating a drum. From the sound of it Dad and I though that there was a whole group of monks back there, and were really surprised when there was only one! He had quite the resonating voice!

The next temple was the final one. It had incredibly ornate weavings draped everywhere and was, as expected, spectacular. At this point it was 3:30PM and we had been touring around for 6 and a half hours! If we had stayed till 8 we could have had dinner with Chosang and Rinzin and the rest of the family, but given that it was a 5 hour drive back to Bangalore we decided that wouldn't be the best option. Chosang gave Dad and I white silk scarves that he got at this last temple and are apparently blessings ^_^. We had our driver take some group pictures of us in front of the temple, then there were some kids outside the temple that asked Dad to take pictures of them and got *really* excited by when they saw themselves on the LCD screen ^_^. He also got a couple of good pictures of 10 year old monks that were watching the proceedings and seemed to feel to formal to join in until Dad asked to take their picture.

We said goodbye to Chosang and Rinzin at the entrance of Bylakuppe, where we had originally met them. It was really sad saying goodbye to such incredible and kind people, and we made sure to get their mailing address so that Dad could send them pictures and some other thank yous for all they had done for us. I feel like I made two friends that day, especially with Rinzin who was very fun to chat with about plans for schooling and things like that. ^_^

There is one last observation I would like to make. At every temple that we vistited, there was a picture of the Rempoche (the head of the temple), and Chosang and Rinzin would say something about them being the 14th or 17th Rempoche (or some other title). There was generally also a picture of their predecessor. It was not until late in the day or maybe the drive back that I realized that they were not 14th in line in presiding over the temple, but the 14th *incarnation* of a Buddhist that had become enlightened and decided to return to our world to help others find the way to nirvana. It made much more sense when I realized this. Along the same lines, there were pictures of the Dali Lama in most every temple, and many pictures of a small boy who was named to be the next incarnation of the sage that China put in to rule Tibet when the Dali Lama fled. However, the kid in the pictures is the incarnation named by the Dali Lama when the previous died, whereas China named a different incarnation and put this child and his family in "protective custody." Conclude from this what you will, but the exiled Tibetans certainly aren't buying it. I saw several "Boycott Chinese goods" sings in Bylakuppe.

The drive back was, as before, beautiful. The main even on the way back (other than contending with *horrific* [worst I've seen] traffic in Bangalore [did I mention that our driver was awesome?]) was seeing a bunch of Indian men walking down the road, butt naked!!! Considering how not OK anything publicly sexual is here, I couldn't believe what I saw! There were about 6 guys, just walking along the side of the highway with no clothes on, perfectly unconcerned. There were also other men, clothed, walking with them (pushing a pair of them on a cart) and also not alarmed. The only theory I have so far is from Tracy, guessing that these men are Jains (a fairly small but influential religious group here) of a sect that does not wear clothes! Considering the uproar I would expect at seeing a naked woman out on the street, I was shocked to see all these naked men. I think two sayings are particularly appropriate for this:

India is a nation of contradictions.
-lots of people

Anything you can think of might be [is?] true in India.
-Prasad

When we got back, around 8:30PM, we went out with Nels, Rob, Tracy, and Pavol to the dosa place near my house, which turns out to be a *fantastic* restaurant for dinner ^_^. After getting back I decided (as I have for many nights in a row ^_^) that I didn't have the energy to write this blog post and collapsed gratefully into bed.

I think that is *more* than enough for now. Next is Sunday's turn... We shall see if that happens tonight.

Cheers,
Jason