The largest Jain temple of India is Adinath Jain Temple located in Ranakpur, near Udaipur, Rajasthan. Built in the 15th century, it is also one of the most beautiful Jain temples. The most remarkable aspect of this temple is the wonderful play of shadow and light on nearly 1,500 pillars. The beauty of the pillars is that each pillar is different from the other in design. The color of the pillars change from gold to pale blue as the sun shifts through the day.

Shri Shatrunjay Tirth is located in Palitana, approximately 280 kilometers from Ahmedabad in Gujarat. This tirth (pilgrimage) is known as the eternal tirth. It has a nearly 216 centimeters high, white-colored and brightly shining idol of Bhagwan Adishvar with a serene and peaceful face and is in the Padmasana (a yoga posture). The Temple has been renovated 16 times. The Temple is a climb of 3950 steps up the Shetrunjaya Hill. Beware, it is no mean feat. Climbing a 3.5 kilometer shadeless stretch in the heat needs some strength; you can neither eat food nor carry it on the way. The descent must begin before evening. There are hundreds of temples on the hill. Some of the temples were built around the 11th century. It must have taken some effort by the non-violent Jain community to perform the mammoth task of clearing the crest of the hill and levelling and fortifying most of the temples, and it took a long time. Till today it is a puzzle as to how the large marble stones were carried to the top when there were no modern machines available. The summit is one of the most revered. Such is the sanctity that climbing the top of the mountain at least once in his lifetime is every Jain’s dream.

Dilwara temple is located in Mount Abut, Rajasthan. The world famous marble temples are a group of 5 temples. They have an unbelievable design and accuracy of workmanship. Vimal Vasahi (Shri Adinathji temple), Luna Vasahi (Shri Neminathji temple), Pithalhar (Shri Rishabh Deoji temple), Khartar Vasahi (Shri Parshavnathji temple) and Mahavir Swami (Shri Mahavir Swamiji temple). The shrines were constructed in various centuries. Shri Adinathji and Shri Neminathji temple are built wholly from white marble. Life stories of various Jain Thirthankaras and scenes from Jain and Hindu mythology are depicted in the design of the temples and no design is repeated – a proof of the brilliance of the architects.

Pawapuri Tirth is situated 90 kilometers from Patna in Bihar. It is believed that it is the ultimate and all sin ends here for a devout Jain. Lord Mahavir, the last of the Tirthankars and founder of Jainism, breathed his last at this place and was cremated here around 500 B.C.

Jain temples in Jamnagar are located in the state of Gujarat. Vardhaman Shah’s temple, Raisi Shah’s Temple, Sheth’s Temple and Vasupujya Swami’s Temple are the various Jain temples in Jamnagar. Besides these, there are sixteen other temples.

Shri Mahudi Tirth is located in Mehsana district of Gujarat. It has a 53 centimeters high, white-colored idol of Bhagwan Padmaprabh in the Padmasana (a yoga posture). It is believed that this place is 2000 years old. An ancient idol of Ghantakarna Mahavir was installed in the temple here by the Acharyadev Buddhisagarsurisvarji. The idol of Ghantakarna Mahvir is very miraculous. In his previous birth, Ghantakarna Mahavirdev was a Kshatriya king named Tungabhadra. He protected religious people, caste and virtuous women and unmarried girls from robbers. He used a bow and arrows. His idol, therefore, has a bow and an arrow.

Shri Samet Shikhar Tirth is located in Giridih district of Bihar. It has a 92 centimeters high, black-colored idol of Bhagwan Parshvanath (Bhagwan Shamaliya Parshvanath) in the Padmasana posture. It is at 4450 feet above see level. It was known also as Samet Shail, Sametachal and many others. Many Thirthankaras attained salvation here. Since this is a land of penance and salvation of many Thirthankaras, each and every particle of this land is holy. Even the mere touch purifies the human birth and a pilgrimage removes all paap (sin) and grants punya (religious merit).

Rikhabdev Jain Temple is situated 40 kilometers from Udaipur in Rajasthan. It is dedicated to Lord Rikhabdev (aka Kesariyaji), the first Jain Tirthankara. It belongs to the Svetambara sect of the Jainism. A large procession of the Lord proceeds to the temple of Pagliyaji (2 kilometers away) in the month of March/April on the birthday of Lord Rikhabdev. It is also called Kalaji (black) by the tribal people due to the black color of the idol. It is believed that Ravana had carried this idol to Ceylon (presently Sri Lanka) but Lord Rama brought it back after his conquest. Such is the influence of the idol that pilgrims, whose wishes have been granted, smear the idol with kesar (saffron) often equal to the weight of the child born.

Shri Mahavirji Jain Temple is 110 kilometers from Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan. It is one of the holiest Jain temples in Rajasthan, situated on the banks of the river Gambhir, built in honor of Lord Mahavir – the 24th Jain saint. This temple is a combination of ancient and modern Jain architecture unlike other ancient Jain temples, which are highly ornamented and richly carved. It is constructed with white sandstone and the spires are visible from all around. Like most Jain temples, this one too is a complex of smaller temples. The biggest draw is the huge statue of Shantinath, which stands 32 feet high. The well-illuminated temple is a splendid sight to view at night. Nakoda Jain Temple is 135 km from Barmer in Rajasthan. The town of Nakoda was built in the 12th or the 13th century on the slope of a hill called Nagar Ki Bhakarian. The biggest and most impressive of the Jain Temples in the town is the Parshvanath Temple. The town of Nakoda has the only other temple of Lord Brahma, the creator of the universe according to the Hindu mythology, besides the one at Pushkar, also in Rajasthan.

Deogarh Jain Temple is 123 km from Jhansi in Deogarh, Madhya Pradesh. Dashavatar Temple is a fine Lord Vishnu temple at Deogarh. It has a terraced basement above the high temple plinth and is adorned with a continuous row of sculptured panels.

Shri Rishbhanchal Tirth is at Vardhmanpuram in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. It has a 4.5 foot high, white-colored idol of Bhagwan Rishbhnathji in Padmasana posture. It is a large temple and is popular as a center of meditation, yoga and worship. The foundation stone of this temple was laid down by The President of India in 1991. The name of Rishbhanchal is related to Lord Rishabhdevji, the first Tirthankar of Jainism.

Shitalnath Jain Temple is in Calcutta, West Bengal. It was built in 1867. It is dedicated to Sri Shitalnath, whose name literally means the “lord and protector of aquatics”.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Tourism

Walker was very friendly.

His long and curly hair resembled that of a Hindu priest.

He was strange looking among the other Germans, especially the German Praktikum (Internship) students.

He was a good conversationalist, and though he was not fluent in English, he managed to express himself excellently.

He always asked me after every word whether his pronunciation was correct, because the same word in English and German have different sounds.

He told me in the middle of our conversation that the Germans in the northern part of the Germany are very intelligent because the northern land is a so flat everywhere and you could see the horizon everywhere, which induces the people to imagine more and become naturally more intelligent.

But he quipped receding from his earlier stand that the people surrounded by the Alps and the surrounding valley regions in Bavaria too could go to the mountaintops and get a wider vision and they too could become more intelligent.

He had ready answers for both of his original statements.

I didn’t know whether it’s true or not, but in my own experience and by my observations, the people in the northern part of the Indian Ocean’s Island – Paradise too were usually considered as intelligent people.

I wondered because of these factors, whether others too considered them as intelligent.

The flat land everywhere with Palmyra trees in the vicinity might have promoted the intelligence of the people in the Northern flat land too if the Walker was right in his argument.

Walker and his friend who came with the table tennis team from Germany invited me to the beach where the team was playing volleyball.

We were seated near the playing field and watching the marvelous finesse of these players.

The team has come to celebrate the 2006 New Year celebration in Sri Lanka from Germany and a happy team of many who are in their late sixties to the teens, with a mixture of men and women.

There is a girl in her late teens, who attracted me a lot as she was directing her staring eyes to everything in the vicinity around her, and making a deep study of everyone and everything.

Two other young ladies and a young girl with an elderly person in his late sixties were playing so marvelously and enthusiastically in the playing ground adjoining the beach near the Indian Ocean.

The twilight has started to turn into complete darkness everywhere. All who played volleyball went towards the sea for a dip after having the long hours of hectic play.

The sea was a little calm and quiet and they went a few meters away from the beach and now we couldn’t see them as the beech has a steep end towards the sea – level from our sandy beach location.

If we wanted to have a look at them we would have to standup, for they may go further towards the deep-sea area.

They were there in the sea for nearly half an hour and returned back to the beach.

The young girl was coming towards us as her towel was placed near us.

Her slim body silhouetted against the background of deep reddish dark sky, evoked the image more or less of an Angel coming towards us.

Her smiling face while she was bending to take her towel was charming adding more to her beauty.

She gazed at me with a smile, as I was the only Asian among the Germans in the area.

It would have aroused her curiosity as to why I was so attached to the Germans.

She became familiar to me when we were having our dinner at the beach-end restaurant of the Aquarius Sports Resort Hotel as we were sitting at adjoining tables.

After the dinner, at her table, those who came from Germany with her started to celebrate the New Year fun – game.

They started to play some innovative game, which I haven’t come across before or heard about.

They were rolling a dice and then the winner in the rotation could select what he wanted from a covered pool of things.

They had collected those valuables in Germany and brought them all the way from Germany to hold a celebration in Sri Lanka.

While there were shouting and clapping in the course of the game, she used to look at me often to see whether I was watching the game and enjoying it or drawing my attention towards them.

I gazed with fascination at the stars in the dark sky over the Indian Ocean through the wide window-less side – wall of the restaurant and then turned my attention towards the happy Germans’ fun and fantasy in Asia.

The fascination of being at one with two worlds was an unforgettable experience in my life.

Time passed quickly with other fascinating and exciting German and local songs in the discotheque.

Rajkumar Kanagasingam is author of a fascinating book on German memories in Asia and you can explore more about the book and the author at AGSEP

It’s Sunday evening and I have spent the day, eyes glued to my computer screen. It’s been windy here all day and cold as, well, as it can be at the end of February. The Spring Festival has come and has now been gone now for about a fortnight. Winter also came a long time ago but spring is still far behind. There is no sign of spring here. In any case, I was warned Huainan has long winters and long summers, with little else in between.

Dinner is a slow affair at the Xiawu Fandian (Afternooon Restaurant). It has started late by Chinese standards where people, generally, eat early. I had to pull myself away from my hunt for money-making opportunities online. I probably made a couple of dollars filling in surveys and the like. Most of my chase ended in dead-ends as even surveys are limited to the developed world. People from the underdeveloped world need not eat nor provide for their old age, I think as I am stonewalled by one dead-end after another. A terse, ‘for US residents only’ is all they say! Writers, in any case, are not expected to make much from their writing. It’s enough that people read their work!

Anyway, Xiawu Fandian! There’s a group of rustics, a family, dressed in dirty clothes, presided over by a young man in a fine suit – fine, by comparison. Farmers are too earthy to bother about appearances and the educated are too flighty not to. It’s a group of some half a dozen adults and an equal number of kids. Everyone’s cheeks are pink. A boy of about seven yoyos between his table and mine, where I sit alone. He wants to make conversation but I pretend I understand nothing, answering his ‘na ge guo jia’ (where are you from) with a not-knowing smile. He bats his eyelids conspiratorially. I respond with the same, happy to use body language in place of words. I am soaking in their rusticity.

The chatter is loud as the kids have finished their meal and are busy exploring the little fandian and it’s surroundings. A sweet little pigtailed girl, her uneven plaits tied down with rubber bands watches me. She’s studying me as much as I am studying her and her family. The suited man turns every now and then to see how everyone is doing and if the laowai (foreigner) is talking with his kin. The girl is dressed in a grubby pink jacket with cloth shoes of matching colour. The gold of the little embroidered peonies on her shoes has faded but her cheeks glow and eyes shine.

In the restaurant, the eyelid-batting boy comes and goes, talking of Chinese Michaelangelos!

The man in the suit has invited the laoban (boss) who also doubles as the chef and the laoban niang (female boss) to his table to share a drink of baijiu (white, rice wine). They sit and the chatter grows louder as the waitresses, for a while, feel less observed. I sit nursing my drink, a sweet wine called jinjiu (a dark yellow-brown coloured wine that’s believed to be healthier than the fiery baijiu). Dinner, a bowl of shredded pieces of chicken, cabbage and noodles in a watery broth, jitang or chicken soup lies waiting for me to turn my attention to it. But, my eyes are feasting on a piece of ruralia.

One by one, the women finish their meal and leave the table to join their little kids. The smallest member of the group, a chubby four-year old girl with beetroot cheeks ventures close to me and eyes a little plastic ring with a cupid’s heart and arrow on my little finger. Her little fingers close around the ring and I want to take it off and give it to her. After all, a student of mine gave it to me and I see no harm in passing it around. In any case, the red of the ring looks pretty awkward on my thick little finger. But, I hold back to consider and she disappears in a flash and is lost in a game of marbles with metal bottle caps that little boys are playing outside.

I know I must return to my computer to continue my elusive search for wealth and am soon absorbed in my simple dinner. My chopstickes shuttle between the bowl of jitang and rice and my hungry lips and I fail to notice that the chatter has ebbed. I finish what is left, marvelling at how delicious a simple Chinese meal can be.

I step out of Xiawu Fandian and am greeted by the unrelenting wind from the north. Unafraid, bolstered by a healthy meal, I turn to the wind and walk northwards, the wind on my face and chest as Sunday evening gives way to Sunday night.

Rajesh Kanoi (Jack) is a published writer, now living and working in China. Many of his short-stories, poems and articles have been published, including a book of short-stories, ‘From China With Love’ (Lipstick Publishing)

http://www.writingup.com/blog/oneinabillion

http://o3.indiatimes.com/kjack