Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H E D R U M 06Vaishali’s greatness the society was young and fluid. It was militaristic butalso open to new religious thought such as the teachings of the Buddha.Social maturity could be seen to have started for this part of India withthe time of Ashoka and his empire. The standard of the carving in suchas the Ashokan columns is exquisite and today seen as the peak of Indianart. That was when Buddhism flourished and it was also when moralstandards such as vegetarianism started. From then on for several centuriesIndian social conventions, along with Buddhism, were exportedthroughout Asia. But then the society went into decline. In modernBiharit seemed to me that we were looking at the very end of the cycle.The morning after our failed attempt at an all-night sitting the drummingstopped. It was the rest day. We left them to it and went to anarchaeological site a few miles away with the young man Ajahn Sucittohad met the previous day. It was a pleasant enough walk along pathsacross the paddy fields, but I was tired and looking at modern India witha jaundiced eye.On the far side of the tank was a small carpet factory. It was just a oneroombuilding, the size of one of the houses, opening along its lengthonto the path and the tank. Above was a long, hand-painted red andwhite sign proclaiming The Mishwal Carpet Manufacturing Cooperative,or something to that effect, and inside were two long looms, intricatearrangements of wood and white string with men sitting behindthem, two to each loom. They were working foot pedals that pulled thewool down through the loom, and with their hands they were pushinga long wooden shuttle back and forth, tightening the wool against agrowing carpet. We stopped briefly to watch while our guide explainedthat the factory had been set up using a government grant designed toencourage carpet making in the region. I already knew about that. I hadread how a campaign by Western charities was forcing the governmentto do something. Carpet making was usually done in the cities by childrenbought for cash from poor parents in the backward regions ofIndia—particularly Bihar. And I recalled that carpet making was not all1 6 1