In the footsteps of the Buddha: Photos 21 to 39

I have now arrived in Varanasi (what used to be Benares), one of the holiest cities in India. Many people come here to die because it sems that Lord Shiva promised that anyone who dies here (within a certain radius) will go to heaven. The place is sacred to Shiva ( the destroyer / creator) of the Hindu trinity. In addition just outside the town is the place where the Buddha preached his first two sermons after having achieved enlightenment, so that place is sacred to the Buddhists (and aslo, coincidentally, to the Jains, because three of their 24 tirthankaras were born there).

I read an interesting thing with regard to Buddhism and Hinduism recently. One of my guidebooks says that Hindus did not originally worship idols (or use idols for worship) but only started to do so in imitation of the Buddhists who were venerating statues of the Buddha. Since the concensus is that no images of the Buddha were made unitl about 1000 CE, Hindu idols would postdate that. It seems unlikely to me, but on the other hand when I visited the National Museum in Delhi I don't remember seeing any Hindu images of an older date.

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