Shanghai. Aug 2013 A Buddhist stele is an ancient stone monument with images and inscriptions and was normally found in temples, monasteries, courtyards and cave shrines. This stele is covered with a Thousand Buddhas, carved and each in their own recessed chamber. The stele is from the Northern Zhou Dynasty (557 - 581 CE) is... Continue Reading →
Shanghai, Aug 2013 The Silk Road started with the trading of silk from China to the other Eurasian empires of that time and eventually allowed the exchange of trade, religion, politics and culture between the East and the West for 1,500 years. Today scholars use the study of currency, called numismatics, to understand the history... Continue Reading →
Shanghai. Aug 2013 There were many intricate paintings and religious artefacts inside the Jing-An Temple. One prominent place was the "Mahavira Hall", a huge grand space built completely from Myanmar teak wood standing on 46 columns. Inside the hall was a 8.8m high, 15-ton statue of the Almighty Buddha in pure silver. We kneeled down... Continue Reading →
Shanghai. Aug 2013 Jing-an Temple is an active Buddhist Temple first built in 247 AD and rebuilt many times over the course of time. Today it sits in West Nanjing Lu, a very busy part of Shanghai. It is actually an amazing contrast to see an old religious building surrounded by high-end shopping centres and... Continue Reading →
Shanghai. Feb 2013 Sometimes my restless son would do something crazy in our house. After chiding him, I would normally want him to reflect on what he did. So I would ask him to go and sit down in front of The Buddha in our hall for twenty minutes. This process normally calms him down... Continue Reading →
Shanghai. Feb 2013 There are no Hindu temples in China and I therefore started going to Buddhist temples. Culturally, Buddhism is quite similar to Hinduism. I was also constantly in a Buddhist environment seeing Buddhist paintings, sculptures, local practices etc everyday and therefore it was easy for me to adjust and to adapt. The Mighty... Continue Reading →
I loved the way light was coming from our living room window into the house and I therefore set-up our prayer altar there. We had our Buddha and Ganesha, the Indian Elephant God there. And also Nataraja, a dancing form of Lord Shiva, for a short time. We lit up candles and incense and prayed... Continue Reading →
Nataraja is a form of the Hindu God Shiva symbolising the cosmic dance of creation and destruction. One day I saw a Nataraja statue in the famous second hand market street Dongtai Lu and brought it home. My kids helped me to wash the statue and I placed Him in between our Buddha and Ganesha... Continue Reading →
Changzhou. Jan 2012 Before I came to China, I didn't know that there was an ethnic group called Chinese Muslims. And I certainly didn't expect to see big mosques in China but you can always see them sporadically in many cities. I never been to the inside of a mosque in China but I have... Continue Reading →
Changzhou. Jan 2012 One of the most unexpected experiences I had in Changzhou was to stumble upon Bodhidharma while visiting the Tianning Temple. Sometimes, some unplanned journeys bring you to a message or show you something. I was walking in the temple when I came across a statue of a monk meditating. But what caught... Continue Reading →