I reached my current location, Bodhgaya, yesterday lunchtime following a delayed train ride which began in Varanasi. I'm here to visit a tree. A fairly ordinary looking banyan tree known as the Bodhi tree. Not a rare species or a record breaker in terms of height. But there is something special about it. For 26 centuries ago the man who was to become Buddha, and the father of Buddhism, sat under this tree and had a good hard think until he found enlightenment, or to use Buddhist terminology: nirvana. Actually he didn't. The tree he really sat under was cut down sometime after by the wife of the Emperor Ashoka and the tree that is there now was grown sometime later on the same spot from a cutting of a cutting of the original (which had been kept by a Sri Lankan Alan Titchmarsh). It's just a tree yes, but it's also the centre of the Buddhist universe and the most important place of pilgrimage for Buddhists around the world.
Next to the Bodhi tree is the tall Mahabodhi Temple which was built in the Sixth Century, but has been altered many times since. Other than that there is the Buddha Statue a few streets away and 25 metres high, and a collection of monasteries in the surrounding area representing most of the Buddhist world: Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Tibetan, Cambodian and Nepali to name but a few. That's really about the size of Bodhgaya - a tree, a temple, a statue, and several monasteries, not forgetting of course tourist hotels, restaurants and trinket shops.
The heat in Bodhgaya is overpowering and regular power cuts mean regular interruptions to the much needed circulation of ceiling fans and air conditioning. I just about coped during the day yesterday but after I went to bed an all night electricity cut meant that my ceiling fan was inoperable. I was unable to sleep and could only just about manage to breathe. I got up around 5am feeling tired but resigned to the fact that I wouldn't be getting any rest, and I decided to walk over to the gardens containing the Bodhi tree thinking it would feel cooler to get outside. It was getting light and I could sit and enjoy it before the heat of the morning really built up. I left my room near 6am and as I closed my hotel room door the electricity kicked back in and my fan finally thrust back into action. I was up and ready to go by then so I kept going. Situations of this kind are what swear words are made for. Being so early I had the gardens to myself save for a couple of Tibetan Monks. I wandered around the pathways and sat opposite the 'the tree.' I felt rather unmoved and a bit short changed, being in the knowledge that this was not the tree that Buddha sat under. More impressive for me was the adjacent Mahabodhi Temple. It looks better from a distance than close up - perhaps because it is 50 metres high and standing back helps you better take in the size and scale. The temple is a world heritage site visited by thousands of people every year.
Bodhgaya itself is located in Bihar 13 kilometres south of Gaya. To the north the Ganges runs eastwards towards the coast and nearby are the Barabar Caves. These are the 'Marabar' Caves in E M Forster's A Passage to India, a book which I have spent the last few weeks reading (prior to reading Are you experienced?). I found it an enlightening book, thoughtfully written: a fair handed account of the British Raj in India and the racial tension that was inevitable while such a humiliating arrangement existed. I timed my reading well for now here I find myself in the same area where the story takes place. Reading the book has helped me to think in more depth about India's semi-recent history, and what was happening here 80 years ago. The India of the novel is not the India I am visiting today, and the two share little resemblance. The British Raj are evident now only in colonial architecture and museum photographs.
I'm trying to look at the increasingly extreme heat here as a positive challenge. I'm trying to prove to myself that I can still operate in it, and with a little care not let it get to me. I've made progress on yesterday afternoon and evening, both of which I spent contemplating voluntary euthanasia. Today I've just felt really hot but pretty OK about it. Around Bodhgaya there are lots of roadside signs saying 'Bodhgaya: the land of enlightenment.' The heat and regular lack of my ceiling fan has given me something a of desire to add underneath '...but not electricity.'
My time in Bodhgaya follows on from my visit to Varanasi which was a very nourishing experience. Most interesting was my day long walk along the ghats by the river. I was able to stop at one of the cremation ghats and watch the public burning of bodies. I would have said that this marks the first time I have ever seen a dead body, if I had not been confronted by the sight of two policemen removing the corpse of a beggar from the street in Delhi last week, an experience which I found very disturbing. I only noticed the contorted and emaciated body at the last minute and almost tripped into it. The bodies at the ghats were wrapped in white linen and after being dipped in the Ganges were surrounded with fire wood which was then set alight. Lighting the fire is the duty of the elder son. I noted that women did not seem to be allowed to be present by ritual which rather annoyed me. The family members that were there didn't seem very outwardly emotional which also seemed rather strange. Bodies take three hours to burn, and once the process is complete they are shovelled from the shore into the water. Babies, pregnant women, and Sadhu's are not allowed to be cremated (I can't remember why) and are attached to stones and sunk in the middle of the river.
Changing subject - I must note, before I forget, that I visited the cinema again recently (in Delhi) and saw a Hindi film called, 'Good Boy, Bad Boy.' It was about two university students, one a nerd the other a rascal, whose identities and lives become switched for some reason I couldn't quite fathom. The upshot is that the nerd learns to relax a bit and gets a girlfriend whilst the rascal learns the value of study and applying himself. In the climax of the film the nerd wins a dance contest and the rascal wins a quiz. The result is that by the end of the film we learn that, in the words of the college principal, 'there are no good boys and bad boys just smart boys.' His statement didn't seem entirely coherent to me but I took it to mean that although both main characters were cut of different dhoti cloths they were both still alright.
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