Three Faiths

Taj Mahal, Agra


A Mosque

Whereas most buildings in India reflect the deep reds and browns of the country's clay and sandstone, most mosques glow brilliantly in the tropical sun, their white-washed simplicity standing crisply against the cacophony of the subcontinent’s pluralism. This was a big one, with three onion domes and two fifteen-story towers at each end. We were actually on a school campus in Bhopal, a madrasa where teenage boys live and study an Islamic education. Inside the mosque, which opened wide on a courtyard, a few boys were randomly scattered at low-lying desks, bobbing their heads to the rhythms of recited lines from their open Qurans.

In the middle of the courtyard, at a rectangular pool, a small group of boys was taking in a relaxed evening bath. They passed around a bucket, pouring water over happy heads, sticking toothbrushes into the pool and back into lathered mouths. The ritual seemed as much about mellow hang time as a bath, a chance to cleanse the teenage spirit along with a sweaty day. One of the boys caught sight of my camera, smiled, and attempted to throw his friend in the pool.

Evening slowly passed along, and we probably could have let it pass in its entirety right there, as a soft nasally voice floated from a high speaker somewhere beyond and above. It was the evening call to prayer. I'd come to realize over the past weeks that a number of Muslims consider prayer to be a private time among their own. The folks here were a smiling and welcoming crowd. However, we wanted to respect what customs we'd come to understand, so we exited our peaceful respite and moved on.

A Hindu Temple

Boarding a bus outside the mosque, we headed for a Hindu temple in the suburbs. The doors swinging open at a curb by the temple gate, we were greeted by a sea of little smiles, all pushing a handful of flowers to our adult heights. A bit disoriented by the floral cornucopia before me, I was then told by our professor that the flowers were an offering for puja and that I needed to buy some. No sooner had she spoken when a bold boy opened my hand and closed it around my purchase.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I traveled to India without even knowing what puja was. As I walked up the driveway toward the temple, I found myself in the company of a number of families. The women were dressed in the bright colors of their formal saris, the men in khaki dress pants and collared shirts. A middle-aged gentleman motioned for me to step through the gate ahead of him and his wife. As we filed through the temple courtyard, he engaged me in small talk to pass our time in the crowd.

Immersed in our conversation I had fallen behind my group, only then realizing I didn't know exactly what I was expected to do next. The temple was the size of a modest chapel. Built of what looked like smoothed adobe, it was painted a mustard-yellow with white trim, with red rectangles on the four sides of a steeple above the door, and white reversed swastikas spaced out in red circles around its outer trim.

The nice gentleman seemed to understand I was a lost duckling and took me under his wing. We made our way around the side of the temple, where two small marble shrines sat in small open shelters, opposite each other in the courtyard. Small groups of worshippers were lining up in front of each, their floral offerings in hand. The gentleman directed me toward the shrine to Lord Shiva, represented by a smooth, phallic shaped statue of dark gray granite centered in a small round pool of the same stone – a reflection of the union of the male and female spirit.

One by one, worshippers climbed the few small steps to the shrine, leaned toward it, and tossed their flowers onto the large aromatic mound that was accumulating with the crowd. Placing hands flat together in a reflective silent prayer they then bowed for a moment of respect and moved on toward the temple.

When it was my turn to step up, I couldn't help but notice the cloud of delighted bees buzzing drunkenly around the floral treasure. "Careful," said the gentleman, "don't get stung." I was raised on Catholic schooling and therefore banking on the notion that an act of human piety, whatever the faith, might find a soft spot among the stinger-laden busy bodies whizzing before me. On this day, I guess, I’d behaved.

I followed the gentleman and his wife up a set of stairs to a veranda outside the temple, where each person reached up, grabbed the string of a large brass bell hammer, and gave it a bold clang before passing inside through wide open doors. Within, white marble walls were etched with Sanskrit and English scripture, the words “Don’t be too prideful” echoing past advice passed on by my own Jesuit teachers.

I was then instructed to hold my hand out before the temple guru, much the same way it would be done with a Catholic priest at communion, and was handed a ball of sweet rice. The rice apparently embodies a deity making an offering to you in return for your own floral offering to them in the courtyard outside. Instead of the guru then placing black ash on my forehead with a thoughtful finger mark of the cross, it was red turmeric placed thoughtfully in a short vertical line. He then one-upped his Catholic counterparts by marking both my ears and neck. The Catholics perhaps strike a balance with this artistry through the adornment of the priest himself, whose bountifully decorated robes stand in sharp contrast to the meager loin cloth that serves as the attire for most Hindu gurus—picture Gandhi with wavy hair and a thick beard. This guru delivered my sacrament with a wise and warm smile.

A Buddhist Birthplace

The next morning we caught another bus, this time to Sanchi, a tiny village that sits at the base of a long 300 foot hill. It was at the crest of this hill, 2,300 years ago, that the emperor Ashoka sparked a legacy of grand structures dedicated to the new Buddhist religion. Today, only three of the more than a dozen monuments still exist. Few history books even make mention of the spot in their global survey of the faith.

Yet, before us, interspersed among winding paths, were three structures that testify to Buddhism’s strong role in India’s past. Behind granite gates akin to the wooden ones found at the entrance ways to modern cities’ Chinatowns, these stupas look a lot like partially buried planetariums built of granite cobblestone, and are every bit as big. They are memorials. It is believed they contain within their cores the partial remains of the Buddha himself.

After meandering around these architectural wonders, we knocked on the door of a retreat house adjoining the site. A young man of no more than thirty emerged to greet us. Six feet tall, with horn rimmed glasses matching his buzzed black hair, he donned the orange and brown robes worn by monks the world over. It was obvious, on this hot and placid afternoon, he was not expecting guests. In true Indian hospitality, however, he offered us tea. Having just drunk quite a few pots over lunch, we politely declined.

It was clear that both parties wished to make an effort to accommodate the other, so we kept his offer for a tour to a short jaunt around the compound while he shared tidbits in broken English about their branch of the faith. His sect is now based on the island of Sri Lanka far to the south. He is now the lone proprietor of this ancient site, serving a four-year term as flame keeper for the now empty birthplace of his global faith.

A Universal Spirit

Just before our rural highway faded into the Bhopal suburbs, our driver pulled over to offer us a twenty-minute visit to a small village. We mulled it over. Would we be disrupting the calm of a traditional day with our cameras and Western ways? He reassured us that the residents were plenty used to visitors. Having just immersed myself in the inner-workings of three faiths, I wasn't sure if I was prepared to ingest anything new in my already loaded Western head. At that moment, an old woman stepped out of a doorway with a welcoming smile. She greeted all of us heartily, slapped Ben on the back, then pointed knowingly with a shared
laugh toward the approaching monsoon. The children's posse then found us, and we were soon afloat in a sea of excited youth. The beauty of children is the lack of veils that culture has yet to place over their personalities. Their varying antics, expressions, and unbridled curiosity provided for me a mental pathway toward a common bond. Much like that old lady sharing a laugh over the weather with Ben, I realized that at the heart of a vast array of religions and cultures, there is an elemental spirit that makes us all very human.

(Summer, 2003)


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