Day 40 - Sarnath

Technically today is one of many “free” days this tour encompasses. In Intrepid parlance the North India Revealed tour is classified as a Basicx level tour (that’s not a typo). Our South India tour was an Original level tour. The main difference seems to be that there are more “included” activities in the latter and more “optional” activities in the former. More or less, one pays up front for the included activities of the Original tour and can choose to do (and therefore pay for at the time) the optional activities or not. If my memory serves me well, we of the older generation have all chosen to do pretty much every optional activity on offer, together. Young Anna has skipped a couple here and there. Of course that means we’ve been visiting the ATM more often on this Basicx tour that we did on the Original tour. But that’s the only burden as Anant has been happy to organise everything for us. We just have to turn up in the lobby at the agreed time.

Today’s  optional activity was a visit to the nearby town of Sarnath – which is really just an extention of Varanasi’s urban jungle. This is a sacred site for followers of the Buddhist faith as it is here that Buddha gave his first sermon after he achieved enlightenment. Eric, Cheryl, Kerry and I thought it would be good to see a Buddhist enclave in this Hindu country. Really surprisingly, only 0.,7% of India’s population claim Buddhism as their religion of choice, placing it 5th on the religion ladder. Surprising since Buddha was born here, died here, achieved enlightenment here and gave his first public address here. But then again, I suppose JC did all that in the region of the south-east corner of the Mediterranean Sea and his religion never really grabbed a strong foot-hold there either.

Anant organised a pair of tuk-tuks for us and we set off for the 30 minute ride to Sarnath at about midday. When we arrived one of our drivers walked us from the parking place under a big, old tree and proceeded to point out all the monuments we should see, in which order we should see them and what we should pay to see them – for all but one, nothing. First stop was the Sarnath Buddhist Temple. This was the site where Buddha gave his first sermon. The temple itself was built in 1931 by donations from a Sri Lankan Buddhist group. Just adjacent to it is an ancestor tree of the famous bodhi tree under which Buddha sat to deliver the sermon. There is a large stone sculpture piece of Buddha encircled by five people people all listening intently to his words. The sculpture is surrounded by dozens of prayer wheels and many large stone plaques each written in the language of a Buddhist nation. The little temple is under repair in the front and sides but the inside is quite nice, the walls being covered in frescoes depicting Buddha’s life. After agreeing to a couple of “selfies” with some excited school children, some excited mothers and grandmothers and some excited young men (all of the aforementioned just love to have a photo with a westerner for some reason) we sauntered off to the next monument – the Dhamekh Stupa, also under repair.

The round, red-brick stupa resembles an enormous hay stack, rising up to a conical peak. It is part of a larger archaeological site that used to be a place of living and worship for a community of about 1500 monks in the period of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the 2nd or 3rd century, essentially, the original Sarnath. It flourished until the mid-5th century when it was destroyed by invading Muslim armies and remained lost to the world until it was re-discovered by the British 1300 years later in 1835. Amongst the ruins was found  the capital of the once 15.5m high Ashoka Pillar which was comprised of four lions sitting on a drum-shaped abacus which is in turn adorned by a number of wheels. The wheel image was adopted by the new Indian Republic in 1947 as the centre piece of the Indian flag.

With a refreshing ice-cream in hand we explored the ruins for half an hour or so and then proceeded to to a lovely garden further down the road which held a huge standing Buddha (30+ metres tall) and a couple of other much smaller ones in the standard sitting position, including a gold one in a little temple.  A few more “selfie” request acceded to we found our patiently waiting tuk-tuk drivers and headed back to Varanasi after a really interesting couple of hours. By request, we were dropped at a shopping mall close to the hotel expecting to meet Anna and Irene but it was the wrong shopping mall. It was as boring as any other shopping mall anywhere else in the world so we sat for a coffee and then went back to the hotel.

At about 7:00pm we gathered in the lobby and headed over to an up-market hotel for dinner, minus Anna who hand been invited to a young man’s birthday party. The hotel was formerly the palace of the king of Tibet so you can imagine it’s grandeur. Our table was on a lawned area in a large central courtyard, surrounded by a two-story, white-walled building facade in all sides. The night was warm and very comfortable, except for the odd annoying mozzie now and then. There was even soft music emanating from the bushes in the surrounding garden. After a simple, but very nice dinner, we headed for our, once again, waiting drivers. Before we got to the tuk-tuks we met an oncoming wedding procession. Indians really know how to celebrate weddings. Ahead of the groom was a vehicle blasing out really load music, women in their best sarees dancing in the street, older suited and turbaned men walking ahead of them, young men holding a neon-lit umbrellas and other lights and a chap letting of fireworks every 10 metres. The procession moved a snail’s pace down the street but boy was it bright and noisy and colorful. After 20 minutes we found our drivers and headed back out into the busy streets  to the hotel.