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Published: October 7th 2004
Cremation on Bagmati River
The eldest son or if there are no sons, a hired one is in charge of the cremation ceremony. This is a journal entry I never got to enter, so here it is!
Before leaving for Tibet, I had a couple of days to tour around Kathmandu Valley. I decided to go to some of the local temples that are accessible by foot or taxi. I first went to the Monkey Temple or Swayambhunath (say that one time...I still can't!) early in the morning per the receptionist at my hotel's suggestion. So I get up at 4:45am and head out by 5am. I get lost for about 30 minutes and end up right where I started before actually getting on the right path. Mind you, there are no signs readily available, and some of them I noticed today, are pointing in the WRONG direction! Anyhow, I made it to the temple by some miracle by about 6:45am and saw the stairway up and about died! After walking for so long, all I wanted to do was sit, but the temple looked interesting enough and I saw some monkeys, so up I went.
The monkeys at first were really cute, but then when I was trying to get my camera out of my backpack, one attacked me! AHHHHH!!!! Needless to
Kids playing in the Bagmati
These kids were so cute! They were playing in the river and then the one who's jumping decided they should all jump from the ledge. Crazy kid...hee hee...he's the only one that ended up jumping! say, I tried to not attract any more attention to my pack or myself afterwards.
The temple is really astounding and the stupa just enormous! The eyes represent the eyes of Buddah, and the circle nose thing is the number 1 in Nepali. I still haven't figured out what it represents. Will update when I find out. The circle in the middle is the 3rd eye. Pretty cool.
The reason I went out so early in the morning to this temple, is that people walk around it a minimum of one time, which took me an hour. So, I guess before people go to work, the do this and go pretty early in the morning. Towards the end of the walk around the temple is the largest Buddah for Peace in Nepal. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it because as I was trying to get my camera out, this lady just grabbed me and started screaming and yelling in Nepali!
I was so startled and scared and confused at the same time I didn't realize what was going on until I looked and she was holding food in her hands and bags
of milk. Of course the monkeys were after her and she was using me as her shield!!!! AH! She was actually pushing me towards them.!! Not so nice of her....
In the end I was able to push us out of that area at which time people started scolding me or telling me something in Tibetan or Nepali, not sure which still...at which I just looked very confused and walked off. (apparently my mongolian face seems to work as being the generic face of asia. it's nice sometimes, but at that moment, not so much.)
Let's just say I'm not a big fan of monkeys anymore. In fact I'm a little afraid of them. A lot of them don't look very healthy and yes, a bit mangey! Yuck. If one were to bite me....
The next temple I went to is called Pashupatinath and is the most important temple of the Hindu religion in Nepal and one of the more important Shiva temples in Asia. It is located on the Bagmati River which eventually feeds into the Ganges and is considered a very holy river.
People are cremated here to go directly to their next life
instead of having to hang out in middle earth (that's my intrepretation of the guide's english...sorry if it's totally wrong! please let me know what it's for if you know!). Anyhow, it's quite a ceremony, but there are no women allowed at the actual cremation so it's a very solemn affair. It's interesting that they allow spectators to just watch the cremations. It's actually very unpleasant, if you can imagine human flesh burning along with butter (the fuel) in the air.....
There are more temples to come, so I'll end here!
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diksha
non-member comment
one=unity
The nose of buddha which is "one "in nepalese sybolises unity n how the world should be united....so in a way its like a symbol of peace.