Jain Temple - Haridwar - Rishikesh Road. Northern India

---

Just before sun rise at the Jain Temple in Haridwar, the front gates are locked. I rattle-check all three but they won’t open so Maria and I walk away. A man from nowhere signals to enter by the side gate.



This temple sits on what, for over 1,000 years, must have been a constantly busy, dusty arterial road which crosses over the sacred Ghanges. Nothing has changed for this place except the people and the life on the road.



Haridwar and Rishikesh are old, old sacred sites where people have come for ever to pray. Every religion is worshiped along here.



At first, I see the detail in the Temple. Every surface of every exterior wall and door and step is carved with sensual figures. Inside there is more. The floor is inlaid with semi precious stones, shells and marbles in a large circle of about 8 feet across, made up of 8 section of ornate swirling flowers and leaves. The centre sits directly below the ornate centre of the carved ceiling high above.



Outside, marble stairs spiral sharply onto the roof level where another smaller room with a coronet, tiered ceiling and a floor with the same design placed exactly above the same position as the one on the floor below sits. Perfect precision. Everything perfectly precise for hundreds of years. The top room is based on an octagonal form but not shape, cutting and filling corners to make squares and circles above other circles. All details everywhere are overwhelming. There is one large God or Deity boxed in a large open marble square big enough to hold about 8 people, at the back of each of the two rooms.



A story unfolds in images around the room just below the ceiling.



The parade of life is rushing by on the dusty road outside, the sun is rising. It is just after 6am and already hot. I sit purposely inside the room but also in the sun beam cast across the marble floor by the rising sun. There is a very physical energy in this place. It enters your chest and settles in your gut. I follow the outlines of the precious stone mosaic flowers on the floor with my fingers to feel what has been felt before.





A woman is singing.



I know that if I lived in this place, you would find me here every day at sunrise.



On ground level again, a man sits with the lower part of his face covered by the extra fabric of his dhoti chanting and lighting incense in front of the main God. At first, I see only men here - one in the palest pink flouting trousers edged in red, the rest are in white edged in red or gold. My senses are heighten by the air thick with the heavy smell of burning incense, at last, a woman enters from the left in a delicate sari of red, fuchsia and pale pink embossed in gold – she’s singing and smiling as she walks. Another woman in a blue and green sari moves around with a large, flat, circular, woven basket holding fresh rose heads and marigolds, someone clangs the large bell three times, a man prays with prayer beads and the place comes alive with sound, smell and floating coloured fabric as if it is a pre rehearsed performance. More laying flowers, lighting candles, sprinkling salt, chanting and singing, flowers in brass bowls wafted over the incense smoke – all executed in perfect harmony. I’m so taken by this ritual that I forget the main reason why they are here. The bell deafeningly rings again. No one blinks but me. A man speaks to me and says twenty-four tīrthaṅkaraa.



Salt is laid out in the swastika symbols across the benches in front of the Deity, candles lit in lanterns, small brass deities placed on a silver tiered stand, circumnavigating, chanting, praying.



The woman in fuchsia smiles at me when I offer her my seat. She doesn’t take it. I leave – to the right. More questions than answers, more ignorance than understanding but I recognise devotion and beauty.

---

Comments

[Dave Western]

Count on the Jains!
"Ello Traaaacey Looov'! What a cracking trip! Count on the Jains to come up with some top flight carving! I burned out a whole flash card at a Jain temple taking detail photos of the carvings on 8 million columns...every one different! It was one of the highlights of the trip...along with cheese naan, a float on the Ganges and projectile vomiting (etc)!! (Don't do that last one!!!) Keep 'em coming Tracey...I live vicariously through your posts! D xx