Outside of Varanasi is a little town called Sarnath, which is a holy city for Buddhists. There are extensive ruins of old Buddhist temples and holy monuments, dating back to the Jurassic Period or something. I don't remember exactly, but they're very old and mostly worn away.
Two stupas that are in the temple ruins are reputed to contain some of the cremated remains of Shakyamuni Buddha's body, which makes them fantastically holy. Actually, that's not quite right. One of the stupas was dismantled partway by the ever-culturally-sensitive British during the 18th century so they could use the bricks as building materials over in Varanasi. They found some relics (physical remains of Buddha) in there, so they tossed them in the Ganges, apparently trying to be respectful of the local Hindu customs. Except the relics weren't from Hindu bodies, but whatever. Maybe it made more sense at the time. It's not like you could just put the relics in another stupa, since those bricks were needed in Varanasi as well. But there is one gigantic stupa still standing, right next to a fenced-off area where some beggars were reaching out to the tourists through the fence.
So our little group (us, a guy from Peru, and two Austrian girls that we met on the train) did the prescribed seven circumambulations around it (where you walk around it clockwise) while our tour guide just stood under a shade tree and watched us sweat in the hot sun and repeatedly tell the beggars "No" every time we came back around. That was a little strange, paying some respect to Buddha by walking around his stupa while simultaneously trying to ignore beggars. Good times!
Later, we went to a museum filled with some incredibly interesting artifacts, including the sculpture that became the national emblem of India. We also saw some insanely cool sculptures that appeared to be mixtures of Buddha and Vishnu, which made Rob's head nearly short-circuit and explode. According to some Hindu traditions,
Shakyamuni Buddha was the 9th incarnation of Vishnu, and so Buddhism was accepted in India as compatible with Hindu beliefs.
By the way, all the pictures here were taken from Wikipedia, since we lost our camera memory card. Boo! But we're only posting stuff we actually saw in person.
Two stupas that are in the temple ruins are reputed to contain some of the cremated remains of Shakyamuni Buddha's body, which makes them fantastically holy. Actually, that's not quite right. One of the stupas was dismantled partway by the ever-culturally-sensitive British during the 18th century so they could use the bricks as building materials over in Varanasi. They found some relics (physical remains of Buddha) in there, so they tossed them in the Ganges, apparently trying to be respectful of the local Hindu customs. Except the relics weren't from Hindu bodies, but whatever. Maybe it made more sense at the time. It's not like you could just put the relics in another stupa, since those bricks were needed in Varanasi as well. But there is one gigantic stupa still standing, right next to a fenced-off area where some beggars were reaching out to the tourists through the fence.
So our little group (us, a guy from Peru, and two Austrian girls that we met on the train) did the prescribed seven circumambulations around it (where you walk around it clockwise) while our tour guide just stood under a shade tree and watched us sweat in the hot sun and repeatedly tell the beggars "No" every time we came back around. That was a little strange, paying some respect to Buddha by walking around his stupa while simultaneously trying to ignore beggars. Good times!
Later, we went to a museum filled with some incredibly interesting artifacts, including the sculpture that became the national emblem of India. We also saw some insanely cool sculptures that appeared to be mixtures of Buddha and Vishnu, which made Rob's head nearly short-circuit and explode. According to some Hindu traditions,
Shakyamuni Buddha was the 9th incarnation of Vishnu, and so Buddhism was accepted in India as compatible with Hindu beliefs.
By the way, all the pictures here were taken from Wikipedia, since we lost our camera memory card. Boo! But we're only posting stuff we actually saw in person.
