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Apart from a handful of minibuses and the big autorickshaws that could accommodate a dozen passengers (and long distance trains, of course), public transport is scarce between Varanasi and Saranath. But the wary traveller doesn’t need a route map on the road to Saranath. Houses, shops, gates, billboards…everything features a familiar leitmotif - Ashoka Chakra, the wheel with 24 spokes.

Path to enlightenment

Don Sebastian
2007-03-08 19:42:35

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Gautama became the Buddha, the enlightened. Years later, emperor Ashoka's daughter Sanghamitra carried with her a branch of the bodhi tree to Sri Lanka. The branch spread its roots in Lanka, like Buddhism itself. The present tree in Saranath is an offspring of the tree in Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka.

Lounging tourists and meditating pilgrims dot the vast lawn. Lovers too set the wheel in motion. Deer are still here. So are the dogs. In the street, curio shops offer genuine Chinese artifacts and local handicrafts. Tourists from across the globe, in organised contingents, are out to explore the esoteric strains of Buddhism. A few of them resist the curious children to try a hand at meditation as their guides gang up to crack jokes.

The Dhammeka Stupa acts as a signpost even before you enter the site being excavated by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI). The 140-foot-high cylindrical tower is the only monument from the Maurya-Gupta period, which has not been razed by armies and time. Though the massive brick structure has not yielded any archeological evidence, monks believe that the tower has Buddha's teeth inside it. They go in circles around the tower in meditation until a guard intervenes at sunset.

On the western side of the site, once stood the magnificent Ashoka Stupa, the most famous of the thousands of pillars, statues and shrines commissioned by Ashoka. The emperor who embraced Buddhism after the massacre at Kalinga, engraved Buddha teachings on stone pillars across his empire. Buddhism flourished under his patronage. Then religious bigotry and internal schism got the better of it.

The massive monastery complex at Saranath was unearthed by a series of excavations in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Ashoka Stupa, discovered in 1904, is now a fragmented column. The lion capital, which lives on as India's national emblem, is displayed in the ASI museum across the road. Many statues, maimed and mutilated, were recovered from the site. They are now housed in museums in Saranath and Kolkata.

Tibetan monks are Japanese tourists bow before the Dhammeka Stupa as the sun goes down. They have already covered Lumbini in Nepal, where Goutama the prince was born, and Bodh Gaya, where Gautama the ascetic meditated. Their journey is not over until they have visited Kusinagara near the Nepal border, where Gautama Buddha breathed his last. Saranath is a milestone on the Buddha path.

Labourers are busy renovating the crumbled shrines and monasteries built by Ashoka and his successors. The supervisor threatens them with a cut in the wage. For these villagers, shaping stones and fixing fissures, the archeological marvels of Saranath ensure existence rather than enlightenment. Pilgrims and tourists move on, insulated to the suffering, like the Shakya Prince imprisoned in luxury before he set out to become the Buddha.

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Buddhism flourished in India and later spread to other parts of the world. Three of the four holy Buddhist sites in Buddhism are located in India. Sarnath is one amongst the four holy Buddhist sites. People come in large number to visit this small town in Uttar Pradesh. It is a pilgrimage destination for them. Bodhgaya, the place where Siddharta Gautama attained enligtenment is visited in large number by both Buddhists and non Buddhists from around the world. they come here to seek spiritual bliss. If you wish to know more about Buddhism like me you can visit http://www.buddhist-tourism.com/

Shantanu Kumar, 2008-05-26 10:46:27