MORE FROM MYSORE

And as if by magic, having made that statement about Polytheism and its potentially confusing nature, the next day everything was made clear to me. Well, sort of… Saying ‘everything was made clear to me’ is a little bit of an overstatement. The full range of Hindu culture doesn’t get ‘explained’ just like that… Perhaps it would be better to say 'a few things were made clearer to me'...

After a full day at Mysore, which had seen me take in the Palace, the monkey-infested Temple at Chamundi Hill, where the Goddess Chamundi is said to have killed a buffalo demon thus founding the city, the neo-Gothic St Philomena’s Church and Tippu Sultan’s castle and palace, plus a pretty delicious veg meal in the Hotel, the next day my driver, Manju, took me to the Temple at Somnathpur, where so much was explained to me. Somnatphur is an 800 year old Temple dedicated to Vishnu built by the Hoysala dynasty. Its now defunct, or has been since the 15th Century, when invading Moghul armies, deeming it idolatrous, and therefore a Bad Thing, damaged some of its statues. As the guide told me, in Hindu tradition, if a statue gets the slightest scratch its connection with the Deity is severed and the Temple becomes inactive. Since its desecration, Somnathpur lay forgotten and disused, covered in jungle until 1958, when the Indian equivalent of the National Trust thought it might be a Good Thing to clean it up, renovate it and turn it into a museum.

And thank God they did, because its amazing. Clearly the Moghuls thought so too, because when you visit it you find the actual extent of the damage is a chip here, a broken arm on a statue there. Presumably they rushed in, shouting ‘Idols! Idols! Destroy! Destroy!’, took one look and went, ‘Idols! Idols! Des- Er, ok, that’s pretty impressive… Hm… Er… Um… Destroy a little bit… Over there perhaps… Yes, just there… Leave the rest… Good! Ok! That’s desecrated! Excellent… Now let’s go and find something else to do…’ and ran off in search of more conquest. It’s the only way I can explain why it is in such a wonderful state.

I could have stood there for hours. The whole thing is reached after about an hour’s bizarre drive from Mysore. Even Manju had to stop about forty times to ask directions. Dust and heat, paddy fields on either side of the road, nonchalant cows holding up traffic (this really is a good country to be incarnated as a cow. No-one bothers you at all, except for a little milk) until eventually you come to a few shacks at the end of the road which reveal the Temple itself. As you approach, you see stone walls concealing three high towers, all rather like those you see on most Hindu Temples. Outside the entrance is a big column, almost Greek in appearance, where, I was told, a permanent flame used to burn to help pilgrims find it (its also thought it may have been surmounted by a statue of Vishnu’s ‘vehicle’, an Eagle, but more of this later). When you go in, you see backed sand and stone, in the centre of which are the three tall soapstone pillars of the Temple itself, built on a raised platform in the shape of a many pointed star. As with all such geometric designs, you can’t see this properly unless you are floating above the Temple which, short of a helicopter or an ability to Astrally Project, is impossible. Nevertheless, the architects must have felt this design was important… Put simply, the whole thing is symbolic of a kind of Celestial Vehicle. It is quite stunning.

The Temple venerates Vishnu in three of his incarnations: Vishnu himself, Keshawar and Krishna. Because its defunct, it’s a completely different experience to visiting the other Temples I have been to so far. There is no ceremony taking place and it is very clean. Its customary to take your shoes off before you go into a Temple which is still being used (which is a bit rich as most people’s feet are pretty honking anyway) but you don’t have to at Somnathpur. Although the other Temples were also fascinating, they were pretty dusty and smelly while this one, because it’s a museum is well-maintained.

A strange feature of all of the ones I have seen is how low and claustrophobic they are. They are also very dark, as they are made of heavy stone with very little light coming through. It’s a stark contrast to the high ceilings and copious light of Churches we have in the West. But this is all in part because Hindu worship is very different to Christian. Hindu Temples are like Roman and Greek ones were. You don’t all go en masse, necessarily. You come when you want and receive blessings etc when you need.. Thus there is no congregation in the same way, although when there are a lot of people present there is quite a crush. Somnathpur was no different in this way. The effect of this is to make all worship within the Temple much more intimate. There simply isn’t space for hundreds or even tens of people.

A guide appeared and offered to show me round. He really knew his stuff and I was immediately impressed. He explained to me how there were almost 5000 statues on the site and how about 50 different sculptors were involved in making it. It was he who told me about the Moghul desecration and the history of the Temple. Fascinatingly, it was built in the late 1200s, the same age in which spirituality was exploding all over Europe, with the Cathars, the Templars, the Kabbalists, the Sufis etc, when popular spirituality was erupting in a second burst of enthusiasm everywhere, and the forces of reaction and inspiration became locked in battle. I asked him whether this was a great age for Hinduism and he said it was. Clearly something was sweeping the planet at that time even though since then it has been pretty much downhill all the way.

The Temple is covered in countless images of Vishnu and his consorts, as well as nods to Hanuman the Monkey King, Brahma and Siva. There are also many images from the epics the Ramayana and Mahabarata as well as a few fruity erotic poses from the Karma Sutra. It was as the guide was explaining them all to me that so much fell into place… I found it fascinating… Here is the gist of what he said…

Hinduism has no less than 3 million Gods and Deities but all of them are aspects of the central three and their consorts. This three are Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, known as the Trimurti. Above them is Brahman, the Spirit Supreme, who is the formless spiritual energy which pervades everything and maintains the existence of the Cosmos. Brahman has no personal aspect, he/she/it is just Spirit and Consciousness, closer to the idea of th Tao or the Ain Sof of Kabbalah. All Creation, including the Gods themselves, are emanations or Avatars of this Spirit Supreme. Thus, quite literally, all is one.

Thus Hinduism is actually monotheistic, but all the Gods within Brahman and the multiplicity of Creation within that reflect the central idea of the One in the Many and the Many in the One, which is why, without an awareness of Brahman, one can experience that sense of confusion I mentioned before(and I am by no means certain that the average Hindu is aware of this either). Perhaps one could call it a Monotheistic Polytheism or a Polytheistic Monotheism.

Brahma, Vishnu and Siva represent the primary forces at work in the Universe and in Man. Brahma is the Creator, and is one step down from Brahman. He is represented by four heads, each looking in one of the four directions – North, West, East and South. Brahma, having created everything for Brahman (rather like Plato’s Demiurge), enters a state of Meditation or Trance, and plays no further role other than maintaining the Cosmos’ form. Vishnu, known as ‘the Protector’ or ‘the Preserver’, represents stability, honour, justice and is called upon to protect the innocent and serve humanity. If there is a counterpart in the West, it would be Apollo or Christ. Siva, his counterpart, is known as ‘the Destroyer’ and is a far more anarchic, independent figure, most akin to Dionysus. In other legends, it is Siva who is ‘dreaming’ the Universe, his eyes always closed, for if he awakens the Universe will be destroyed. Siva is also depicted as the Lord of the Dance in that classic image of the multi-limbed figure dancing in the wheel of fire, standing on the demon Ignorance. Thus he becomes another image of Cosmic Man understanding the true nature of the Cosmos, able to transcend the many and bewildering buffets of Time and Space in an image of joyous harmony…

Thus Hinduism recognizes the interaction of these three energies in everything, removing at a stroke any anxiety about how evil or destruction can exist in a Universe created by a just God. If Creativity, Preservation and Destruction are part of the Trimurti, all these energies are seen as being essential parts of the cycles and processes of the Universe. Thus there is no duality. While we in the West get stuck in knots trying to reconcile a loving God with war, famine, death and natural disaster, Hinduism sees them as One. Is this a good thing? You decide, but it perhaps explains why we as a culture have set about trying to defeat war, famine, death and natural disaster while in the East there is more of an awareness of these things as part of life’s process. Does this breed passivity? Possibly. Does our way breed neurosis? Possibly. I guess its spiritual swings and roundabouts… but further evidence, if evidence were needed, of how the Mind of a culture adapts to the world around it. In fact this is something which is occupying me more and more out here. From this distant perspective, even our own Western mindset with its obsession with money, control, fame and belief in progress and a science which believes that human consciousness is an illusion and nothing else seems like just another construction of our mind. One gets an overwhelming sense of the human race creating its own reality everywhere and believing in it 100 per cent. That, perhaps is part of the problem. If we were able to have a more pluralistic and wide-ranging view we might be able to work through some of our problems. Instead we all sit in our different parts of the world convinced that we have 'the Truth' when in fact that Truth is a lot more subtle and slippery than we think.

The guide went on to answer my questions. He explained, for instance, why Hindu Gods are many-limbed. Each pair of arms denoted a different level of divinity. The first pair were always human while the second, third and so on symbolized multidimensionality. Vishnu has anything from two sets of arms to thirty-six, each of which carries an object or is making a gesture which reveals a new aspect of the Deity. I asked him why Krishna only had two and he explained immediately that Krishna was the most human of all of Vishnu’s incarnations. I should explain briefly that Vishnu is the only God of the Trimurti to incarnate in our world, Krishna being the last, unless you count the Buddha which some Hindus do (although I have a suspicion the Buddha would have had something to say about that, given that he spoke against worship of Gods of any kind! Still, it’s a wonderful sign of the ebullient generosity of Hinduism to include him!). The bomb that went off in my mind was when I asked the guide what the symbolism of Vishnu’s first incarnation, a great fish, was. He immediately said that this was because the human race began in the sea…

And then it hit me. It meant that the whole progression of Vishnu’s incarnations were a record of the history of human evolution, starting from the fish, through the mammals (bull, lion), to the most human, Krishna himself. In other words the whole allegory of Vishnu was another sign of the whole history of the human race from our early origins in the sea to now (another one in the eye for Richard Dawkins!) with our own Divine nature flowing throughout, with Krishna the Divine Human at his most accessible. And, rather wonderfully, the whole cycle from Brahman to Krishna is echoed in the names of those that dominate the Old and New Testament, Abraham and Christ. Once again, the Gods or God is/are within us. Forget that fact, think they are external, and we miss the message.

This may seem academic to everyone else but it hit me with the force of an express train. A friend of mine in the UK told me I would have mystical experiences in India. Others both there and here have told me how India is the oldest uninterrupted culture in the world and the fountainhead for all spirituality, philosophy and learning. Well its true and no matter how many times it is invaded, from the Aryans to the Moghuls to the British, it has never gone away and never had its culture erased. Indeed, if anything, it has transformed and infused the invading culture. And that is what is so beautiful about this place. For all the social difficulties, it is like going back in time as well as staying in the present. As you drive through the countryside and the cities, everything seems to merge into one. Cars share the roads with carts drawn by oxen, teenagers wear jeans and T Shirts and carry mobiles while women in Sarees carry wood or baskets on their heads, children roll tyres along the pavement with sticks for entertainment while internet cafes connect you with far off countries. Inevitably the imagination runs riot and with all these different cultures with their monuments across the landscape, one can’t help engaging with everything. The mind just flows. And everything is out there for discussion. All the things people tend to have to covert about in the West – such as the things I am discussing here – one doesn’t have to be embarrassed about. Open a national newspaper and on page two you find a discussion about Chakras. Where would you find that in a Western newspaper? Certainly not in the Guardian! On the next page you will find a discussion about a Bollywood star or an equally partisan article about the stupidity of religion. Its all there.

Its not all terrific, of course. On Valentine’s Day the papers were full of discussions about the reactionary Right Hindu party’s Shiv Sena’s announcement that it would physically attack anyone seen celebrating Valentine’s in public. It was deemed un-Indian and would not be tolerated. The government responded by arresting the leaders of the party for the day (they were threatening violence, after all) while the public responded by sending hug deliveries of pink underpants to their HQ. Th Shiv Sena (or SS!) responded to THAT by announcing that they would burn all the pink pants… If only all extreme political debate were carried out in such a way!

So anyway, Somnathpur was amazing and took me somewhere very special.. Wandering around the Temple towers and walls I was shown all the different hand-carved images of Vishnu, Parvati, Brahma, Sita, Rama, Hanuman, Ganesh etc. Rather wonderfully, before I left I was shown a carving of Vishnu in his ‘vehicle’, the Eagle, looking very much like the winged image of Ahura Mazda of Zoroastriainism, and as we drove away to return to Madikeri and the school, an eagle flew above us, following us for about half an hour. Who knows? Maybe Vishnu himself was watching out for us?

The drive home was as spectacular as it was coming out. I mentioned that the countryside is the greatest Temple I had encountered and I mean it. Its not difficult to realize where the great spiritual history and wisdom of this country came from. The landscape is breathtaking and utterly magical. It’s a form of meditation just to drive through it or even just sit and look at it, as we did when we got back to Madikeri and my driver showed me the amazing view from the little park just above the town. People like to guess what I actually ‘believe’ in (ie am I a Christian, a Kabbalist, a Muslim etc). I like to keep them guessing but if you want to get closest, read the Upanishads, which is the text I think is at the heart of everything. Here is where you will learn about Brahman, the Spirit Supreme incarnate in everything, including Man. In India, looking at the trees, the hills, the mountains, the forests, the lakes, the rivers, you find the spirit of these great Scriptures flowing everywhere… It made me aware of how much we lose by the continuing urbanization of our culture, even though this obviously brings prosperity and security to us (I’m not naïve enough to think that we would all be better off living as people live over here) and of how we have banished discussion of the heart and the Soul from our daily discourse. It isn’t healthy for us. We need to get our connection with that back. Here in India, for all the hardship and suffering, there is nevertheless an openness about these things which is incredibly liberating..

And side by side with it, all the bizarre contradictions of being alive. I have spoken of the darker side of things here and I am sure I will see more of that, but there is also an endearing, funny side. Spelling and grammar are rather wonderful, for instance. I have seen adverts for LOUXOURY BUSES for instance and signs on statues saying DON’T TOUTCH ME. I have even thought of going into business as a freelance speller for people. Shop names get better and better too, from the demurely inviting lingerie store called BRA AND PANTY and the tagline for another underwear shop for women which reads THE SHOP THAT SATISFIES ALL WOMEN’S SENTIMENTS (whatever that may mean!). Its very inspiring in its eccentricity..

And its not all wonderful spirituality and insight either. I finally managed to get to the Tibetan Buddhist refugee camp near the school and it was a very depressing sight. Its hard for us in the West to imagine what being a refugee might be like but it was clear from the tiny bit of land these Tibetans were living on that its not easy. Nor is it good for the Spirit, as wandering around the Buddhist Temple buildings indicated to me. The Golden Temple looked very unhappy, a kind of Disney construction with no real soul to it at all and wandering into a room full of Buddhist monks chanting in front of giant-sized statues of the Buddha was very dispiriting. It felt like compulsory chapel, with all the monks yawning, looking depressed, gazing out of the window and not feeling anything. Its not surprising. These Tibetans have been stuck here since 1949, their leader in the north of the country, with sons being sent to be monks so that they can be taken care of. Refugee life can damage the soul, and little Enlightenment was going on it felt to me. It was very bleak and very sad to behold people deracinated from their culture and not able to draw any real sustenance from it. I wondered what the Buddha himself would have made of it all. Like JC, I don’t think he ever encouraged anyone to build Temples but to look within and I think he would have been miserable to see so many people supposedly following him but only really following the externals. I imagine it would have sent him out on the road again…

And that was the second part of my weekend. For me, it was wonderful stuff, even the apparently negative experience at the Refugee camp, and made me look forward more and more to what was to come. When I got back to the school the kids gave me a welcome that almost made me cry. They came rushing up to me at the gate as I got out of the car and hugged me, saying how much they had missed me. It was so lovely to be cared about in such a way. One came into my hut as I was unloading my bags and said ‘When you are gone, when I look at the stars, I will know that you are right here with us’.

To the future… and more adventures…