Day: 5 Can I convert for five minutes?
Saturday
We left the Hotel at around 8am to visit the main attraction in the town of Madurai: The Temple to Shiva
In the Hindu religion there are over 300 million Gods (polytheistic much?). The main God is the God Shiva. Shiva is the god of destruction. He is the most highly worshiped God in the whole Hindu religion.
The temple to Shiva was extremely interesting. Our first image of the temple was a giant gate rising out of the rest of the slummy town. This was one of four gates that made up the perimeter of the temple. But this gate was like none I had ever seen before. Going up about 15ft, this archway was ornately carved and decorated. The exterior of the arch was made of hundreds of shrines all of the different shapes that Shiva takes. One was of Shiva as an elephant. Another was Shiva as a horse. He also took the shape of human, among many other things. Each of these depictions was a colorful sculpture that was about 5ft by 5ft. The architecture was amazing-and the color scheme looked as though it was picked by a small child.
Factoid: The reason that the arches are so high is because the higher the arch is (in Hindu belief) the closer it is to god. This is very similar to the way of the Egyptian Pyramids.
We had to take our shoes and socks off prior to our entrance to the temple. The granite felt warm on my feet. The dirt felt rough on my feet. The gum felt weird on my feet (I’m kidding. There was no dirt).
The first thing that we saw upon entrance was a tree. Tied to the tree were fifteen-fifteen and a half boxes. There appeared to be hand carved. Inside the box was a bull and a Human form of a Shiva. These boxes were placed there people who had family members who wanted a child. Near the pole was a metal pole that also held about fifteen-fifteen and a half boxes. They also appeared to be homemade. They had the same figures of a bull from of Shiva going head to head with a human form of Shiva. But these boxes were all red. These boxes were placed there by people who had family members that wished to get married. The bull in both of these boxes was an image of kindness. The human form of Shiva was an image of destruction. The two meeting signified that this was an offering or a wish. The yellow is a sign of procreation (it is the color of the god of Creation named Vishnu). The red signifies love and harmony (red stands for the God of love whose name I forgot).
Before too long, we turned a corner and what stood before us was an elephant. The most common animal that Shiva takes, the elephant has much symbolism in India. A symbol of power and fortune, elephants are a truly beautiful creature. These giants are extremely intelligent. In order to be blessed by the elephant you must give the elephant 10 rupees. This money starts out in his trunk them he passes the money on to his master who beats him with a bull whip-out of appretation.
Jack and I both payed 10 rupees to the elephant. Since the elephant loved the money that we gave him, he took his trunk and dropped it on our heads. The trunk was (as you can imagine) extremely heavy. The skin was rough and there were hairs pocking out of the body of the beast. But it was extremely calm and kind. You had to feel for the dude. He should be out trotting in the prairie with his friends.
Inside the temple, there was nothing but Shiva. Shiva as different animals. Shiva doing different poses. Siva happy, Shiva sad. The care being given to one of three million gods was immense. Why did there need to be 3 million gods? Do people really that many people to bow before? I know that Hinduism is partly about being able pray to you want but must there be 3 million choices? Don’t people get a little overwhelmed? Know I would. ‘
Let’s see. Who would I worship today? Tom, Joe, Bob, John, Smith, or the 2999995 other gods that I did not name?”
In the temple, there was a place where you could stand and if you looked in the right way you can see the golden roof of the shrines to Shiva and his wife. We were not allowed to go into the temple because we are not Hindu. However, I was considering becoming a Hindu just to visit the temples of Shiva and his wife.
After the temple we en tot one of Aravind’s Eye Clinic-Camps. These are buildings that a sponsor rents out for Aravind. People from all accros of India come here to:
Get their eyes checked
See what kind of care they need
Receive the care
If they need surgery, they receive care
If they need glasses, there are custom made glasses
ALL FOR AN EXTREMELY AFFORDABLE PRICE
The camp does this all for the people who are there.
There were 6 stations:
1. Checking to see the vision percentage
2. Checking to see what kind of care the patient need exactly
3. Giving the care
The man that was leading us through the camp was extremely interesting. He was the manager of the 42 Aravind eye camps all across India. Each clinic has a manerger who then reports to him. In turn, he reports to Docotor Aravind, one of the leaders of the whole operation.
Today was to be our last day in Madurai. Form here we were traveling about 3 hours to Kodia. The drive to Kodia was extremely buetifull and sceininc. The windy roads, the serated mountains, the low hanging fog made the drive awesome, but also quite dangerous. Dangrous both for the car and for our stomachs. I had been writing for the past hours and to now be taking this path, ooh boy. I was on the brink of spilling liquids out of my mouth a few times.
Once we arrived in Kodia, we played some games and hanged out for the rest of the day.
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