THANJAVUR DREAMS AND GODDESS'S BOOBS

Well, I love Thanjavur. I liked Madurai, but it was a hot, noisy city where people fleeced you. Thanjavur is different. Its still hot and noisy, but not as much so. No-one fleeces you (not so far anyway). In fact no-one pays you much attention at all. As you walk down the streets, all you see are people getting on with their lives. It seems less stressful, less urban than Madurai. As I say, the streets are wider and there are even leafy areas where there is the nearest thing you can get to calm. And when the sun sets and night comes in, magic comes to even the most urban street.

I like my Hotel too. Not only is it simple but comfy and spacious, it is quiet. My Hotel in Madurai was slap bang in the sprawl. Valli (named after a Goddess I found) is set back from the main streets and is very relaxed. The guy on reception is very helpful and saves you money. The waiters in the restaurant are a little odd and the fare a little spartan but its still nice. Some of the rules are wierd (no eggs until 8.30 so all you can have for breakfast if you're up early is toast) and the name is too: Lingam Restaurant. Now, as I think I mentioned before, a Lingam is a kind of phallic symbol which is worshipped as a representation of Siva. No doubt as an image it goes back to prehistoric times, when Lingams and Yonis (Phalluses and Vaginas) were worshipped as the primal powers in Creation, but it feels like a strange thing to call your restaurant. 'Welcome to the Penis Restaurant' or 'Enjoy your meal at the Phallic Symbol Diner' isn't an advertising tagline you would expect to find in the UK.

While I have been here I fell in with a couple of other travellers, Sylvia (from France) and Harriet (from England I found out when I asked 'Comment t'appele-tu?' and was told 'I'm Harriet) who were spending the year travelling the world. Once more the solidarity of travellers in India took over and we wandered off around the town in search of somewhere to eat. We found ourselves wandering down ill-lit, crowded streets which nevertheless had a strange kind of frenetic charm until we ended up at was was described in the Rough Guide as 'a swish restaurant worth it for the live music'. It was very wierd. Out of an ordinary Indian street suddenly rose this palatial building with a restaurant straight out of London's West End in it. The 'live music' consisted of a guy on drums and another playing a fiddle on and off. 'Is a violin strictly speaking an Indian instrument?' Harriet asked. We thought probably not.

We sat down and ordered some food and discovered that we had been more or less following each other across India. They had also been in Cochi and gone on to Varkala which, like me, they also didn´t like much. Equally interesting for me was the fact that they had come to India via Istanbul, the very city I was travelling back to Europe through. They told me that the hotel I was going to in Istanbul was right next to the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia which excited me a lot as those were the key places I wanted to go. Fantastic.

It was a good meal but the strangest moment came when we asked each other what we did. Sylvia works with Environmental Groups. Harriet told me she worked with something called Restorative Justice. My face lit up as the last show that I directed in the UK back in 2007 was an Australian piece called A CONVERSATION by David Williamson which dealt with two families, one of whose daughter had been raped and murdered by the son of the other. The format was a session of Reformative Justice. I had corresponded with people via email who were championing RJ in the UK. HArriet said: 'Was this in Manchester?'. I said 'Yes'. Then we both realised that we had exchanged emails about the show all those months ago. 'Are you Jake?' she asked and I said 'Are you Harriet?' and we were both dumbstruck that we had both met by accident half way across the planet in a little hotel in India. What are the odds? A nice coincidence, anyway.

The next day I decided to go down to the Temple which Thanjavur is famous for. I got there early on Harriet and Sylvia's recommendation as the heat would be less in the morning. Just as Thanjavur is different to Madurai, so the Temple here is different to the Temple there. Where the Madurai complex is vast and bustling, the Thanjavur Temple is vast but quiet and majestic. It isn't painted like in Madurai. All you get are vistas of beautiful sand-coloured stone which changes colour as the sun changes overhead. Where Madurai was like a market, full of active shrines, Thanjavur is more like a Western Cathedral enclosed in a vast fortress surrounded by smaller shrines. Its set back from the city, while Madurai sits plonk in the middle of a modern urban sprawl. Madurai towers up like a great alien spacecraft, Thanjavur asserts itself with great dignity with nothing to prove. Both are incredible.

I left my shoes at the entrance, passed by the Temple Elephant which was greeting the passersby and was accosted by a Mr Rajan, a Guide. After my Napoleon experience I was wary but then realised I needed a Guide and settled a price. I needn't have worried. Mr Rajan was excellent and, like the guides at Somnatophur and Madurai revealed a lot more about Hinduism.

For instance, taking your shoes off at the Temple entrance has nothing to do with hygeine but is done so the pilgrim can draw the energy of the Temple up out of the ground through his feet. As in Madurai - and indeed as with every Holy Site all over the world - Thanjuvar Temple is built along very precise measurements and geometric designs aimed at drawing down and capturing Divine Energy and passing it into those visiting. As in the West, Indian Temples are based particularly on measurements of the idea of the Cosmic Man, in India called Purusha. In Europe, the classic example are the Gothic Cathedrals, whose Cruciform shape embodies the ultimate Cosmic Man, Christ, with the Nave symbolising the Body, the central area and choir the Soul, the Tabernacle the Spirit and the Altar the Deity incarnate within it. Thus the design of the Holy Site is supposed to show how the Divinity is within all of us, just as we are made in God's image.

In India, the Gopura represents the head of the Cosmic Man, with the rest of the Temple representing the other four parts of the Body. At the same time, the pointed nature of the Gopura represents a human being praying to God. In India there are three prayer & greeting positions - hands above the head, for when you are praying to a God, hands before the face when you are greeting or praying to someone you respect like a parent or a guru and hands before the chest when you are greeting/praying to anyone else. My Guide took a picture of me in the God-praying position with the Gopura behind me and you could see exactly what he meant. Before I left the UK I had become very interested in the history of Sacred Architecture of this kind so I found all of this fascinating. In the West, as an Art it is almost completely forgotten, which is why someone like Dan Brown can astonish everyone with his crazy theories about Cathedrals etc. To us, the idea that there is a numerical/mystical symbolism to our Churches and Cathedrals sounds Hoodooey but it isn't it all. It was how things were done. Its us who have fallen off the wagon. Meanwhile here in India, because the culture has not forgotten it, these things are still alive. Talking to the Guide just confirmed all sorts of things I had discovered about our Holy Buildings in the West. Looking at a cross-section diagrams of the layout of the Temple, I was struck by how similar the dimensions were to the description of the Temple of Solomon in the Old Testament and, bizarrely, when you look at a cross-section of the Gopura, you see what looks like a Western Church spire inside it. Even more beautifully, according to a photo of the view of the inside of the Gopura from directly below the positioning of the different levels form a mandala, just as I remembered the extraordinary geometric mandala designs in the domes in Rumi's Lodge in Konya. Everything connects up.

When he found out that I knew a bit about all this stuff he got very excited and explained more and more. He showed me a Snake-God's shrine which had a five headed Cobra in it which symbolised the Unity of the Five Elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Spirit (Akasha. We had the same idea with the Greek element Aether, but for some reason we don't learn about the five elements, only the four), which were also represented by the five fingers of the hand. He showed me how when we prayed the Unity of those Five Elements on one hand united with the Unity of the Five Elements on the other, the one representing the Human, the other the Divine. Thus once again I was being shown how a vision of Wholeness was embodied at the heart of Eastern spirituality - quite literally 'thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven'.

I realise this must be very boring for some people but it fascinates me. Anyone who is bored, skip down a few paragraphs to the sunset bit... I've given it the title 'SUNSET BIT' so you won't miss it. Now on with the BORING BIT...

The Guide took me to the inner sanctum of the main Temple which is dedicated to Siva with a smaller Temple to his consort Parvati nearby. In contrast to Madurai where Meenakshi was put before Siva, here Siva was put before Parvati. In the inner sanctum was an enormous black stone lingam covered in garlands of flowers. It was a powerful site and reputedly the biggest in India. There was something vaguely terrifying about it - pitch black and enormous - but that wasn't unpleasant.

Prayers were offered to Ganesh and Parvati and we moved on, bumping into Sylvia and Harriet who had gone down to the Temple much earlier. They joined us and we carried on. At one point, as we all stood in a crowded, claustrophobic smaller shrine, Mr Rajan asked us if we wanted to know why Rama and Krishna were always blue while Siva was always red. He lit a match and cupping it in his hand asked us to look at the flame. Sure enough, the base of the flame was blue while the main body was red. It was wonderfully simple but revealed something so obvious it was amazing. Another step to demystifying the often confusing symbolism of Hinduism to the uneducated Western mind. It also revealed the Light-Worshipping origin of Hinduism, which once again united it with every other spirituality the world has ever known from Zoroastrianism to Christianity and everything else, even the legend of Prometheus...

Mr Rajan recommended that we come back at sunset to watch the Temple transform in the failing light. As he left us, we split up and wandered around the Temple for a while, drinking it in. It was magnificent. The atmosphere was proud and majestic. Another side to how India explores its spirituality and its past. The Cholas, the dynasty who built it and turned Tamil Nadu into a great nation, must have been an amazing people. As before, Thanjavur's Temple was built between the 11th and 14th Centuries, the same time as the great Holy Sites of the world were being built everywhere else.

I was tired so headed back to the hotel, but not before we had all had a meal in another eat-all-you-want-off-a-leaf-with-your-fingers-for-nothing restaurant Harriet and Sylvia had found. Once again it was delicious and the people serving there lovely, watching over us to make sure we enjoyed our meal. Afterwards we had a cup of chai in a street stall and went our separate ways. Harriet and Sylvia were off th next morning to check out some more Tamil Temple towns. We agreed that if we overlapped in Pondicherry we would try and hook up.

Walking around the night before and this afternoon with the other two had broken my continued nerves about walking around Indian towns on my own. Mumbai had freaked me out and Madikeri used to leave me feeling exposed and shaken, I am ashamed to say, so I tended to use rickshaws everywhere. Now I found myself striding around Thanjavur confidently, stopping into shops, recharging my phone, going to ATMs etc. It was great. I loved it. The vibe here is great and full of colour, with modern and ancient things overlapping - streets crowded with internet shops and choked with motorbikes and then a guy in a dhoti drinking chai with wood stacked on his head. I am embarrassed to say it has taken so long for me to feel I can do this now but I am not the only one from the West who feels shy of it. Everyone has their own stories and one of the women who visited the School admitted that she felt she always needed someone to hold her hand as she went anywhere.

All this bombing around is probably why I woke up feeling so exhausted today. But it was worth it for the feeling of exhiliration it gave me walking around. And the most special part was watching the sun set on the Temple...

SUNSET BIT

Welcome back all those comparative-religionophobes out there. Join us for the good bit.

As the evening was setting in I walked from the hotel after a brief siesta to the Temple. Following the map, I was astonished to find myself walking down a peaceful main road surrounded by beautiful trees and hills. The colours of the sunset were already transforming even the most urban surroundings around me into something poetic and magical. I could see the Temple Gopuras in the haze, looking extraordinary on the skyline. As I crossed the canal, passing a barracks full of unlikely looking soldiers doing their drill, I found myself at the gates and, taking off my shoes, went inside.

The atmosphere was wonderful. In the dusky light, everything seemed to be in a kind of slow motion with that strange quality of sound that time of day always takes on. As if the soul of the whole city was coming to rest, everyone seemed to be walking around calmly, sitting and chatting on the grass, relaxing after a hard day. There were a lot of families with their kids, a few school parties and even the Brahmins, who had looked bored and frustrated during the day, looked relaxed and happy. The Temple Elephant looked as if it was boogying in the sunset. I felt very calm and at ease. It was very serene.

As I walked around the complex watching the light change the stonework, bathing it in all sorts of wonderful colours - mauve, reds, yellows - all of which seemed to release a kind of exhalation of relief from the buildings. I was very happy. As the light faded and lights came on to illuminate the grounds, for the first time I could imagine suddenly how it must have been like 200, maybe 500, even 1000 years ago. It was like Time was merging into one, and I could see with my mind's eye the Cholas walking among the stone. I don't remember which set of Shamen it was (Mexican maybe?) who had said that Twilight and Sunrise were optimal times to communicate with the other world as the veil between us and the next was at its thinnest but I could well see what they meant. As in Cochin, it felt like the spirits of the past were walking with us.

It was a magical few hours, and I will be going back tonight for a repeat performance. Sylvia and Harriet appeared, having also taken Mr Rajan's advice. Mr Rajan himself appeared, delighted that we had. We were befriended by a woman from Delhi who was in Tamil Nadu to visit her Tamil husband's parents with their twin daughters. She offered us grapes and we chatted. She revealed that she taught Russian and Japanese (!!!) at a University in Delhi. When she discovered that Sylvia was French she commented that French was very hard to learn. Not more so than Japanese, we pointed out!

As the day ended, we went to another restaurant which was so dimly lit we needed torches to read the menu. But the food was delicious and the cold beer was welcome.

Today I woke feeling rough so took it easy (I later realised it was the uncomfy bed that was doing my limbs in!). I went up to the Palace where there is an amazing collection of Chola bronzes of different Gods and where I was mobbed by another group of smiling, laughing schoolchildren, this time wearing blue, who wanted to shake my hand and know my name. As I wandered around the statues I realised just how religious-minded the Cholas must have been and was struck by the fact that it was very easy to forget that these statues with their incredible beauty and precision didn't spring into being fully formed, but had someone behind them, lovingly creating them. I was also struck by how in all Hindu Temples and statues Goddesses always have enormous, almost surgically-enhanced boobs and were always topless (something that doesn't seem to be reproduced in the movies about them, strangely). Clearly eroticism was very much part of the vision of the sculptors and I was reminded of how this was the country of Krishna and the Gopis and the Kama Sutra. Indeed, on almost every Temple I have visited there have been whole freizes of sexual antics, from 'donkey-sex' in Tipu Sultan's fortress Temple to an image of Krishna up a tree with a group of naked Gopis beneath doing things that would make Pamela Anderson blush over the entrance of Thanjavur Temple. Perhaps this is another of the things that makes Hinduism so unique among world religions, its attempt to unite the world of the senses with that of the Spirit, unlike most spiritualities which seem so often to try to divide them, at least in their mainstream forms. And yet sexual modesty in women is actively encouraged in India with television and film censored and rather prudish. If you watch US channels in India, swearing and references to sex are edited out, even on subtitles, rendering whole chunks meaningless. They had Scorsese's CASINO on, for instance, in which, thanks to all the swear words being deleted, whole scenes passed by with everyone opening their mouths vigourously but not saying anything. Similarly in the movie KNOCKED UP, a rom com about a couple who end up falling in love after a one-night stand in which the women becomes pregnant the ten-minute sequence in which that actually happened was cut out entirely, making the whole thing incomprehensible.

Very interesting. And of course, we don't think of Indian women as 'covering up' because their saris are so utterly beautiful but in fact they are. You see very little flesh as you walk down the streets, but because of the beauty of the clothes and the natural elegance of the women you don't notice. And yet the Sari is designed for modesty, from the long sleeves and trousers to the sarong across the breasts to hide any contours. The big difference with Muslim women is, of course, that Hindu women don't have to cover their heads, leaving their beautiful, thick long hair exposed. Its nearly always tightly plaited, but still looks stunning and when an Indian woman has just washed her hair and is letting it dry, as you see by the streets every morning, the richness of it is stunning.

So lots of interesting contradictions (unlike our part of the world where we do everything right and there are no contradictions), all of which continue to make this country so wonderful and fascinating. I feel lucky to be here.

So, a quick look at the Temple at sunset then an early night. A complex trip to Pondicherry tomorrow with the next leg of the adventure. Wish me luck!