Day 4 - Varanasi &Sarnath
Trip Start
Dec 09, 2010
1
5
28
Trip End
Jan 08, 2011
Varanasi & Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, India
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
After breakfast, our guide took us to Sarnath, where Buddha preached his first sermon. Sarnath is a very important archeological site and holy place for Buddhists and the world. The Dalai Lama will be visiting here next month to give sermons at the Tibetan University nearby. Here there are ruins dating back to the 4th and 5th century. The largest surviving monument in Sarnath is the Dhamakh Stupa. This is 143 ft high and 748 ft in diameter at the base and built around 500 A.D. It also marks the place where Buddha delivered his first sermon. A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics and used as a place of worship for Buddhists. We saw a group of Buddhist pilgrims, possibly from Thailand, chanting and marching around the stupa. We also met some school children that were very curious about us tourists. They asked us many questions. . I did some meditation and felt strong energy from the stupa. After the visit, we went into the museum. Some artifacts were as old as 200 B.C.
We then visited a house where they make silk. Varanasi is famous for silk. Afterward, we went for an ayurvedic massage and Shriodhara. The Ayurvedic massage consisted of a hot herbal oil body massage combined with pounding on the body using a cloth sack filled with hot oils and herbs. With the Shriodhara massage, your head is placed under a bowl of oil (oil fountain) which continuously drips warm herbal oil onto the forehead and into the hair while a head massage is done. Approximately 5 L of oil was used. Elise and I really enjoyed it. We felt heavenly afterward.
We walked through the busy streets to get back to the hotel. By the time we got back to the hotel it was about 6pm.
