Yesterday, after a day of project-related paperwork in the hospital, I accompanied Aditya on a visit to a famous Jain temple in Kesariyaji, the little town where I change from bus to jeep en route to Kojawara. The stretch of road between Kojawara and Kesariyaji never fails to make my impressionable heart sing. It climbs vertiginously up to the rim of a water-filled quarry and descends to deliver the traveller to a modest-sized plain that stretches on one side to the Aravalli Hills. Supposedly the oldest range in the world – whatever that means – they are an odd shape, many pointed like something out of a child’s drawing. The overall impression they give is earthy and brown-red, although many are well-dotted with trees such as teak, mango, acacia, mahua and tendu. The plain is mostly cultivated with bright green paddy or maize or freshly ploughed, brown soil. A fair number of trees dot this landscape too, predominantly mango but also palms, which act as forceful reminder that we are not far north of the Tropic of Cancer.
Evening on the Kojawara-Kesariyaji road
The villages lining the road are all interesting and attractive. Many of the houses are in the same mud and tile style as those of Maal but there are some more substantial square stone structures – new wealth? – often painted white or pale green with a flat roof, sometimes with Rajput frivolities on top. There are the ubiquitous paan shops, recognisable by the numerous strings of foil sachets, containing a range of digestives and carcinogens, that hang from the ceiling in a row at the front of the shop, and chai stalls, tailors, STD phone booths and everywhere a gentle, agriculturally-focused bustle.
It would have been out of character for shy Aditya to attempt anything of a discursive nature on the subject of his religion, so I shall take it upon myself to do the honours. Jainism is an ancient religion that, like Hinduism, has not spread beyond India and its diaspora. One of the most sacred Jain principles, in fact the only one that has really attracted the attention of the non-Jain world, is that of ahimsa, or non-injury. This extends to all sentient beings, so Jains are strict vegetarians or vegans and even avoid onions, garlic and potatoes in order to preserve the life of these plants.
Jains believe that throughout history there has been a cyclical decline and resurgence in man’s knowledge of dharma, which is an endlessly difficult concept for people like me to grasp, but is normally translated as law, truth, duty or religion. At each cycle, dharma has been re-established by a series of twenty-four thirthankaras, ford-builders, who are the key focus of Jain devotion. Thirthankaras are not gods, but rather teachers who guide humanity across life’s fast flowing river towards liberation. The final thirthankara was a sixth century prince from Bihar named Vardhamana but universally known as Mahavira, or Great Hero. Some believe that he taught the Buddha, and certainly there are family resemblances between the two religions. Buddhism, of course, has flown the Gangetic nest and flourished elsewhere, now virtually unknown in India except in some unusual re-appearances such as among some Dalit [11] communities and in Tibetan refugee camps.
Jainism remains firmly in the Indian world and still seems to cling somewhat to the apron-strings of Hinduism. In fact many Jains I have met initially described themselves as Hindus, either because they assumed I wouldn’t know what a Jain was, or because they consider Jainism to be a form of Hinduism. Furthermore, I was very surprised to discover that the priests in the temple at Kesariyaji were not Jains at all, but Hindu Brahmins! Aditya tells me that all government-funded Jain temples (and prosaically a large number are government-funded - eastern mysticism doesn’t come cheap) are staffed by Brahmins, although he was at a loss to explain why.
But what of the temple itself? It is an intricately-carved marble building full of pilgrims and priests. It is called the Rishabhdeo temple, after the first thirthankara, Rishabha (the suffix -deo or -dev, incidentally, is a cousin of the Latin deus and the Greek theos, meaning god). The town Kesariyaji is also sometimes called Rishabhdeo and actually has a third name which I forget. Though the name eludes me, an interesting tale hanging thereby does not. It is the name of a farmer who found an idol of Rishabhdeo in his field five centuries ago. Who originally built the statue and why is mystery, at least to Aditya, but the story continues that the Maharana of Udaipur built the Rishabhdeo temple on this spot to commemorate the find. At any rate, there is a long tradition of Jain temple-building by the Maharanas and other Rajput rulers as a way of keeping the wealthy Jain community “on side”.
Before returning to Kojawara we stopped for fried snacks and spicy green chutney in a roadside cafe where I was finally able to get Aditya to talk a little more freely. Initially he spoke about his faith, which is monotheism of the kind that claims all religions to be one and the same, a pleasing, inoffensive and surprisingly widely held notion in India that I suspect would not stand up to much intellectual scrutiny. Later we came to his personal life: he is getting married next February to the girl next door. This is an arranged marriage – apart from in the capacity of an occasional tutor, he had not spoken to her until his parents unexpectedly told him about the match. “But fortunately she is very beautiful” he says. Both sets of parents have given the couple the freedom to get to know each other before the ceremony. “In America,” he told me with just a hint of mockery in his eyes, “Love ends at marriage. In India, that’s where it begins.”
Aditya
It is interesting to see how different kinds of arranged marriages work. In the most traditional marriages, the bride and groom first set eyes on each other at the wedding itself, but increasingly there is a trend towards the other extreme (within the parameters of parental arrangement) such as in the case of Tapan and his wife, where the couple are given time to meet each other and discuss things before coming to a decision. I would guess that this liberalism is sometimes a bit of a sham, and that the weight of parental expectations is too heavy for the prospective couple to decide anything but in favour of the marriage. The growing use of websites such as www.shaadi.com is presumably transforming the arranged marriage scene.
Driving back in the dark, passing through the villages settling down to their evenings, knowing we had the hospital and a delicious meal to return to felt peculiarly cosy.
Footnotes:
[11] Dalit, meaning oppressed, is the name commonly used for the "untouchables" at the lowest end of the caste system. Gandhi had earlier called these people harijans, Children of God.
Next Post - Thursday 9th November 2006: Maal and Kojawara (will be posted Wednesday 9th November 2011)
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