Ladakh Travelogue Part 7: Palaces & Monasteries of Leh

We had spent just over a week in Jammu and Kashmir. Harsha, Prasenjit, Ananya, Sreyashi and I, had been to Srinagar, Kargil, Drass, Nubra Valley, Pangong Lake and were now at the end of our trip. We would spend our last day in Leh, the capital city of Ladakh, exploring the monasteries and palaces in the neighbourhood and shopping.

Ladakh Travelogue Part 5: Mask of the Buddha - The Hemis Festival

Our trip to Ladakh had been planned and timed in such as way so that we wouldn’t miss the Hemis Festival which we had read so much about on the internet. We had started with Srinagar, then moved on to Kargil, then Leh and Nubra valley. Hemis was home to Ladakh’s richest monastery, and once a year, they had a gigantic festival where a masked dance called “Cham” was performed. Websites gushed about the festival – great photo op, unforgettable experience – you know how it is. But before I tell you about what the festival is really like, let me give you a bit of a backgrounder on the Hemis Monastery itself.

Masks of the Cham Dance

Aurangabad Caves

Before we visited Aurangabad, I had done some basic research on the city and the surrounding areas of the Indian state of Maharashtra, and it is during that research that I had found out about the Aurangabad Caves. I planned an itinerary and sent my sister off to the Maharashtra Tourism office in Calcutta (Kolkata) to make some enquiries. She came back and told me that the Maharashtra Tourism office had never heard of the Aurangabad Caves! I was rather taken aback; after all, the caves are mentioned even in the Wikipedia article about the city. But it seems, in spite of being nearly 2000 years old, the Aurangabad Caves are not really high on any tourist’s list of priorities.

 

Dzongu, North Sikkim: Holy Land of the Lepchas

North Sikkim Travelogue Part 3

For the last leg of our 2014 trip to North Sikkim, our travel agent suggested that we try the Mayal Lyang homestay in Dzongu. Bordered by the Teesta River in the south-east, Tholung Chu River in the north-east and by rising mountains in the west, Dzongu is a forested mountain valley that is a reserve for the Lepcha people. The Lepcha are the indigenous people of Sikkim, with their own language and script, distinct culture and cuisine and are mostly Tibetan Buddhist. Our hosts were Gyatso and Samsay Lepcha, and their family.

 

Myanmar (Burma) Buddhist Temple, Eden Hospital Road

Like many others, I too had passed by the Myanmar (Burma) Buddhist Temple on Eden Hospital Road (now Dr. Lalit Banerjee Sarani) in Calcutta (Kolkata) many times without being aware of it, until the evening the white sign with red and green letters caught my eye. A Burmese Buddhist Temple in Calcutta is not all that unusual. Burma, or Myanmar as she is now known, was once part of the British Indian Empire. Many Indians, especially Bengalis were settled in Burma and had to leave their homes and return to India during the turbulent years of the Independence struggle. There was a small but significant Burmese presence in Calcutta (Kolkata) as well of which few vestiges still remain.

The Myanmar (Burma) Buddhist Temple is devoid of any external architectural significance; just another decaying building in a mostly decaying neighbourhood with masses of unruly electrical wiring hanging from every conceivable place. That’s because this was not really a purpose built temple, unlike the Chinese Temples of Tiretta Bazar, nearby. The building was purchased from an Indian in 1928 by a Burmese national, U San Min, for the sum of Rs. 47,000. U San Min named it the “Burma Buddhist Dharmasala, Calcutta”. The first presiding monk was Rev. U Nandawuntha. In 1932, U San Min handed over the temple to the monks and ever since the Burmese have been electing monks who are sent over to Calcutta to take charge of the temple. The ground floor of the building on 10 A, Eden Hospital Road is leased out to shops. The first floor functions as a guest house for visitors from Myanmar. The temple is located on the second floor. The gate on the ground floor is almost always locked. I had arranged for permission to visit and photograph the temple through the help of my friend Shabnam and her family. As I walked up the stairs, I felt like I had passed through some kind of portal, and entered a different world. The signs on the walls were all in Burmese! The only sign I could read said “Please remove your shoe”.

Nipponzan Myohoji Japanese Buddhist Temple, Lake Road

Few people living on Calcutta’s (Kolkata) Lake Road are aware that there is a Japanese Buddhist Temple in the vicinity, and even fewer are aware that it is officially called The Nipponzan Myohoji Temple. I don't blame them. One generally only discovers such things if one walks, and this being a relatively affluent neighbourhood, most people travel in cars. The omnipresence of smartphones with large screens has also somewhat destroyed people’s natural tendency to look around. But the real question is, how did we end up with a Japanese Buddhist Temple in Calcutta (Kolkata)?

The altar of the Nipponzan Myohoji Japanese Buddhist Temple

India’s ties with Japan have been long and cordial. Nobel prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore had visited Japan in 1916 to deliver a series of lectures. The Japanese collaboration with Indian revolutionary Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army or INA is also well known. The Japanese had been practicing Buddhism since at least 552 C.E. Nichidatsu Fujii (1885 – 1985) was a Japanese monk who was deeply influenced by the writings of Nichiren, a Japanese Monk revered as a saint. Nichiren held the opinion that the Lotus Sutra, a collection of teachings of the Buddha near the end of his life, was the sole means of attaining enlightenment, and that one day the Lotus Sutra would be preached in India. It was with this aim in mind that Nichidatsu Fujii arrived in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1931 and walked the streets of the city beating his drum and chanting “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō”, which translates to “I take refuge in (devote or submit myself to) the wonderful law of the Lotus Flower Sutra”. This chant or mantra may still be seen above the door of the Nipponzan Myohoji Japanese Buddhist Temple of Calcutta (Kolkata).

Bhot Bagan Math, Ghusuri, Howrah

There aren’t many in Calcutta (Kolkata) who have heard of the Tibetan Buddhist Temple or Monastery known as Bhot Bagan Math in the Ghusuri area of Howrah District. Fewer still will be able to locate the dilapidated complex on 5, Gossain Ghat Street. The extremely narrow approach roads through dense slums populated by mostly Bihari migrant workers make it inaccessible for most cars. And yet, Bhot Bagan Math was the first Tibetan Buddhist Temple in the plains of India; in fact, it was the only pre-Twentieth Century Tibetan religious institution in all of South Asia. The word “Bhot”, used in ancient India to refer to Tibetans probably comes from the Tibetan word “Bod”, meaning Tibet. “Bagan” in Bengali means garden, and “Math” is Bengali for monastery. Bhot Bagan therefore, would mean Tibetan Garden, and that is what this was originally meant to be.

Bhot Bagan Math (in the distance)

The origins of Bhot Bagan Math maybe found in the conflict between Bhutan and princely state of Cooch Behar of 1771. The Bhutanese had long claimed the right to appoint the ruler of Cooch Behar, and when a succession dispute erupted, the King of Bhutan, known as the Druk Desi, Zhidar, invaded Cooch Behar, ousted the Raja, and installed his own candidate. The deposed king, Maharaja Dharendranarayan appealed to the East India Company for help. Warren Hastings readily agreed for the small consideration of Cooch Behar’s sovereignty, half her annual revenues and the cost of the military campaign. Zhidar’s army lost three border forts to the East India Company’s force led by Captain John Jones, and it is at this point that Lobsang Palden Yeshe, the 3rd Panchen Lama, chose to intervene. Jamphel Gyatso, the 8^th Dalai Lama was then only a boy, and the Panchen Lama was the de facto ruler of Tibet. In a letter to Warren Hastings, the Panchen Lama made the grossly inflated claim that the Bhutanese were Tibetan subjects, and offered to broker a peace settlement. As his envoy to Calcutta (Kolkata), the Panchen Lama sent a Hindu monk by the name of Puran Giri Gosain.

Yumthang Valley, Sikkim

North Sikkim Travelogue Part 2

For 2 ½ hours we were enchanted by the beauty of India’s 2^nd highest lake, Gurudongmar, but we finally had to make a move for the equally beautiful grazing pasture called Yumthang Valley, in North Sikkim. After a short stop for lunch, I and my friend Prasenjit reached the little town of Lachung, where we would rest for the night. Our tour operator had set us up in a top floor room and we had a beautiful view of the mountains from our window, and since I can never sleep peacefully in a new place, I woke up obscenely early, and managed once again, to get that “sunrise in the mountains” shot, that so fascinates tourists.

Sunrise at Lachung

Gurudongmar Lake, Sikkim

North Sikkim Travelogue Part 1

Yumthang Valley and Gurudongmar Lake had been on my travel wish-list for a long time. Both of these places are in the Northern part of the Indian state of Sikkim, high in the Himalayas of North East India. Our travel agent in Calcutta suggested we add Dzongu, a forest valley that has been reserved for the Lepcha peoples of Sikkim, to our itinerary. Since I am not the type who treks, me and my friend Prasenjit chose to do the normal tourist thing, i.e. travel from Calcutta to Bagdogra via air, and take a car from there to Gangtok, Sikkim’s capital. A four by four would then take us for our week-long vacation in the mountains. I don’t know why, but to me, music always sounds better in the mountains, and I find myself quietly staring out of the car window at peaks and valleys, listening to classic rock. Sikkim is magical, they say, and the first piece of magic happened as we pulled in to Gangtok. I had just turned on Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album on the iPod, and as if on cue, as the first strains of The Rain Song started playing, it began to rain! We arrived at out hotel as it was getting dark, to the sounds of thunder echoing in the mountains.

Thunderstorm in Gangtok