No internet until today. After Varanasi we took a plane to Kajaraho, a small town with nearby temples. 25 temples adorned with thousands of sculptures. The best known are scenes of men consorting in various ways with their wives or girlfriends before going off to battle. A thousand yrs ago, boys would go there for their education. Yesterday morning we went to a nature preserve, saw antelope, wild peacock, macaque monkeys, water buffalo. (Water buffalo walk the streets of all the cities anyway). Then we stopped an a site near Jhansi. This had an interesting palace built by a maharaja (local king, like a feudal lord, later became like governors under emperors or the British government) for a muslim ruler. So the palace had a combination of Hindu and Muslim symbols, something that happened a lot in Mughal times to try to unite Muslim and Hindu peoples. Worked a little. Saw temples and mausoleums of the rulers of Orchha, then took a white water rafting trip on the Betwa river. Cool being on a raft and passing centuries old temples and shrines off the banks. We took a train to Agra and this morning saw the Taj Mahal. Unbelievable, The marble is hard as bedrock, and 20-40,000 people spent 25 yrs and lost their fingertips inlaying decorative stones into this mausoleum. The emperor (shah Jahan) was so obsessed with love for his wife, after she died giving birth to their 14th child, he had this built, then spent the rest of his life in mourning while his sons killed each other trying to inherit his throne, which one did, then imprisoned him at the nearby fort where he died staring at the taj. First picture - Buda began preaching his message of peace 2500 years ago here at Sarnath. It wasnt until 1947, two and a half millennia later, that Buddists would travel to pay homage. Here are Buddhists from all over asia coming to pay their respects second picture- Alan and I in front of one of the temples at Kajaharo. third - detail of just one tiny portion of that one temple. 25 of the original 85 temples survived. some scenes from private life, some more explicit than others. fourth picture - oxen power a water wheel that brings up water from an ancient well for a farmer, just like it was done for many hundreds of years fifth picture - 500 year old pool with hot tubs. Underneath the deck, fires were stoked that would bring hot air up the bottom of the hot tubs in bubbles sixth - Taj Mahal at sunrise gives a magical appearance. seventh - the detail is unchanged since it was built in the 1500s, and will probably last a long time after BTW, our first guide was not very bright. The six pointed star, when there is something in the middle, is called the star of India. It is probably very ancient, with the triangle pointing down representing a woman, and the one going up representing a man. It was a symbol of universality that made its way into India in ancient times. King David found it useful as a symbol, and it became the star of David. In India, today, the six pointed star with a symbol in the middle is a sign of good luck.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 19:42:03 +0000
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