Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06and the occasional image of the Buddha. There are rows and rows ofthem in a great variety of forms and flowing postures; and all with brokennoses. The invading Turks did that, as they did with all heathen statuesthey found.The grandeur of the site, and the complexity of the images, maskedsomething, however. The essence of the original Buddhist teachingsseemed to have gone. For all their artistic complexity, the images failedto convey for me any feeling of the sublime. The grandiose buildingswere very impressive but did not move my heart in the way the simplestupas at other sites had. My favourite place was a large moundtopped with a few Bodhi trees that was nearly cut off from the rest ofthe site; a small isthmus jutting out into the paddy fields. The distantsound of Indian pop music from the stalls at the entrance mingled withthe calls of the farmers to their oxen and the sound of the gentlebreeze in the Bodhi trees above me. A pair of black-shouldered kiteswould perch high in one of the trees, occasionally taking off to quarterthe area, hovering over the fields and diving to the ground, or gliding,and then suddenly plummeting into the trees, hoping to catchsmall birds unawares.From my vantage point I could see the visitors touring the Nalandasite, appearing and then disappearing among the ruins, or climbing themain temples to peer out over the surrounding land: western touristsin twos and threes, middle-class Indian families with their childrenscampering about, and large parties of Tibetans, mostly monks, whoarrived by the coachload to be disgorged at the main gate. They wouldcreate a sea of maroon as they mingled at the entrance. Once inside,the sea would quickly disperse among the ruins. The monks weremostly young, either boys, youths, or young men, and they had a lot ofrestless energy. They would be all over the site calling to each other inTibetan about what they had found. All of them, even the old monks,wore white sneakers. They seem to have become part of a Tibetanmonk’s required clothing, those, and watches, which are usually2 1 0