34) Datia and a hill full of white Jain temples

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May 3rd 2005

Published: May 20th 2005

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Stephan and Klaudia

White Jain temples scattered around Sonagiri

Sonagiri (literally, the golden peak) is a place sacred to Digambar Jains

We liked Orchha very much, so we stayed in the hotel there also when we made an excursion to Datia, a city not too far from Orchha, it was possible to go there and come back in one day. We were only travelling with our day packs, so there was no need to hire a rickshaw only for the two of us and for once we wanted to do it the Indian way and took a tempo (= shared rickshaw) in order to get to the Jhansi bus stand. A tempo has more space than a normal rickshaw, according to Western standards it would hold 8 passengers, 2 beside the driver and 6 on two benches. The average Indian is shorter and frailer, so it is absolutely normal to have 8 people seated on the benches and we were not even feeling squeezed. We stopped feeling comfortable when more and more people kept climbing in, one woman was sitting on the floor at our feet, some were even standing in the vehicle although it is not feasible to stand upright, so they stood crookedly and some were outside, trying to get a foothold wherever possible. During the (rather short, thank God)

Sonagiri Jain temples

This sacred place is popular among devotees & ascetic saints to practice for self discipline, austerity, and to attain Nirvana (salvation)

trip we kept wondering why they did not fall off. The tempo was definitely overloaded, when we were already driving on the main road to Jhansi the engine overheated and the brakes stopped working. The driver did the only possible thing to stop the vehicle, he turned left and drove the tempo uphill on a small hillock. It had the effect he had wished but the passengers were shaken a lot and Klaudia got quite scared. Then the engine got a nice shower, it cooled down and we reached our destination without any further problems. We quickly found a bus to Datia, but it was already very full, we could not sit together and Klaudia was squeezed between a fat lady who would not move an inch and a huge sack standing in the aisle. Her left leg was in the aisle and people always had to step over it and sometimes squarely stepped on her foot. More people kept entering and finally a lady seated herself on a bench for two to Klaudia's left and her daughter sat on the sack, literally blocking the aisle on that spot. But they were quite nice, admired Klaudia's bangles and offered her

Pair of white elephants

These paired elephants hold up the earth at all cardinal and other critical points

some grapes.

Datia has a fort from the beginning of the 17th century, which was built by the same ruler as the Orchha fort. We got off the bus somewhere on a busy street in the middle of town because we had seen a fort on a hill from the bus. We tried to find our way, but nobody spoke English there, they tried to tell us something but we did not even understand their gestures. Somehow we managed to find a small steep footpath up a hillock on top of which there was an old building. It was around noon and burning hot, the palace (we supposed so) was in a very bad state and did not really correspond to what was written in the guidebook. We could not find an open entrance but on the right side there was a small house with a sign that said "museum", so we headed there and found it open to our big surprise. Already on our way up a group of boys of about 10 years of age had started following us and asking questions, they were rather unpleasant and extremely obnoxious. When we entered the museum they were still

The main temples

On top of the hill are the most impressive Jain temples of Sonagiri

there, it was impossible to get rid of them. The museum was the weirdest thing we had see so far, we felt transported about 50 years back in time. They displayed several showcases with stuffed Indian wild animals, for instance a tiger, but beside it there was a reindeer on display, not really an Indian animal. The animals were extremely dusty and the labels almost faded and almost illegible, anyway many of them were only in Hindi. Finally the caretaker of the museum came and he had enough authority to chase the boys away for good. He also informed us that this was not the palace we had been looking for and showed it to us perched on another hill in the distance. He also showed and explained us the museum's exhibits, several beautiful old statues (some from the 8th century AD), very special. It had got hotter and hotter and suddenly it started raining. Not like we had experienced it long time ago in Hassan, a couple of drops, real rain came falling down! It was really a pleasure to feel the cool water on your skin and the air was getting fresher, making it again possible to breathe

Round pyramidal temple

This temple was quite different from all others, it reminded us a bit of some of the Gaudi's works in Barcelona

normally. At the end we were led into a room with several miniature paintings on the walls depicting mainly the local rulers.

We made up our mind and did not visit the other palace but planned to go to a place nearby that Stephan had heard about when talking to a taxi driver in Jaipur. The place is called Sonagiri, is a holy Jain place of the Digambara sect and has 108 white temples on a hill. In this Jain sect, the monks go naked while in the other sect they use white clothes. We saw a monk while we were there but refrained from taking a picture, we did not consider it appropriate. We did not know how far the place actually was from Datia, tried to hire an auto-rickshaw but the driver wanted a tourist price, so we tried to bargain, without mentionable success, when suddenly a man speaking very good English came to our rescue. He told us that the rickshaw could take us to a spot where tempos leave to Sonagiri and also informed us about the correct price. We were pleased but the rickshaw-driver must have hated him, since he earned only a fraction

Klaudia in Jain pose

According to our guide, this pose should help her reach a higher stage on her path to salvation

of what he had hoped for. Anyway, he was correct and took us to the right place. We stepped into the tempo when it was almost empty but it filled up quite quickly and - believe it or not - they managed to stuff even more people in than in the first one, in the end there were 28 (!!!) people on board included the driver and two children. We survived the trip, we were seated anyway and were the last passengers to get off. As you cannot get lost as a foreign tourist in India, we were immediately shown the right way. As normal in all Jain temples, we had to take off all leather articles and shoes plus socks as well. We arrived at 4 o'clock and were a bit in a hurry because the place closed at 5 o'clock already. The temples are linked by a paved footpath which looks beautiful but the stones really heat up. We were extremely lucky that the sky was overcast and it had rained before, otherwise we would have badly burnt our feet. We started wandering around and were soon welcomed by the caretaker who led us around for the rest

Peacock on Jain temple

What a nice viewpoint

of the time. He tried to give us some understanding of the Jain way of life, but nevertheless we are still quite ignorant. But he had a very gentle personality and was extremely soft-spoken, which may be one of the Jain characteristics since they fiercely oppose any kind of violence. The first temples date from the 17th century but the site grows constantly as a new temple is built every time a Digambara monk dies. We were walking uphill, when another rain shower came up and we had to take shelter in one of the temples. It was a wonderful feeling afterwards, refreshing our feet in the puddles of water. We liked the temples very much, each of them a bit different, one was especially interesting, all covered in tiles a bit like Gaudi-style and with spiral stairs all around. Our guide also showed us a place where people touch a saint's feet and then their heart to pray for offspring. He urged us to do the same, we did not resist and he made us promise to come back with our baby. The grounds are beautifully wooded and full of peacocks, they are everywhere, what a nice sight to

Peacocks everywhere

This birds just loved the place

see them sitting in the trees!

Somehow we had to get back to Orchha and waited for a tempo. When one finally turned up, the driver asked for 140 rupees instead of the 24 we had paid on our way there. We were shocked but also worried because there was no alternative transport in sight. Stephan had enough, he would not be ripped off that blatantly and went to the police station next door to complain. The driver had not expected this and agreed to take us to a big road where we could take a bus for 25 rupees. We had no choice and were dropped in the middle of nowhere. A traffic policeman was standing there and immediately tried to help us, although he hardly spoke any English. He wanted to stop one bus for us but it simply drove on, then he stopped a jeep (we still don't know whether it was a private one) and it took us to Datia for free. The ride was fine, we had so much space at our disposition! There we were dropped anywhere, we were quite desperate but finally we found a shared jeep that would drive up to Orchha. This ride was rather horrible, we were squeezed in and our legs were obstructed by a suitcase on the floor, it was pitch dark and the guy was really driving fast. We could not hold on to anything and constantly hit one of our shoulders and our back against metal bars. Unfortunately the jeep only drove to the Jhansi bus stand and it was too late to hire a tempo. We were 6 people who wanted to go to Orchha, there was a lot of bargaining going on, of course all the drivers wanted too much money, but astonishingly it worked out somehow and we got to Orchha at a modest price. However once again the tempo was overcrowded as more people who appeared out of nowhere just wanted to go to Orchha.

The day was an experience of its own, afterwards we never took a shared tempo again. When we left Orchha we hired one for us alone, it was so comfortable but at the same time we were feeling guilty when we did not accept all the poor Indians on the road who were desperate for a ride. Isn't that strange? Sonagiri impressed us a lot and it was definitely worth the trouble we had to get there.