Travelling Around Britain and the World

Wednesday 6 March 2019

Palitana and the Temples on Shatrunjaya Hill: Gujarat Part 8

Gujarat: The What, Where, When and Who


India
Gujarat

This post covers day 8 of a 14-day journey around Gujarat, following our circuit of Rajasthan last year. Smaller than Rajasthan, Gujarat is about the size of the Island of Great Britain and has much the same population.

5,000 years ago, Gujarat was a centre of the Indus Valley civilization and subsequently played its part in most of the major north Indian empires. When Islamic invaders reached northern India in the 9th century Gujarat held out until 1300 when it became part of the Delhi Sultanate.

Day 8 takes across the south of the Kathiawar Peninsula from Bhavnagar to Sasangir via Palitana and its Temples

An independent Muslim sultan seized power in 1391and Gujarat maintained its independence until becoming part of the Mughal Empire in the 16th century and later the British Empire, though local rulers of a patchwork of Princely States retained considerable autonomy. At independence in 1947 Gujarat became part of the State of Bombay, becoming a state in its own right in 1960.

With a long coast line facing the Arabian sea, Gujaratis have been seafarers and international traders for millennia.

Gujarat is the home state of both Mahatma Gandhi and the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

-o0o0o-

Bhavnagar to Palitana

We crept from our Bhavnagar hotel at 5.30 clutching our breakfast boxes and left the city along dark, quiet streets. Palitana was just over 50km away, an 80 minute journey on Indian roads, and we needed to be there early.

It was still dark when we stopped for Vijay and L to get a cup of tea and a bite to eat. Vijay suggested we eat our breakfasts, too. ‘There is a cheese and chicken sandwich in there,’ he said pointing at the breakfast boxes we had yet to open, ‘you can’t eat chicken in Palitana.’

We did as we were told, there was no point being difficult, and there really was a cheese and chicken sandwich in the box, an unusual combination, but not unpleasant. Palitana, a major centre of Jain pilgrimage, claims to be one of the first two vegetarian cities in the world – though where the other one is no one is telling. It is illegal to buy or sell meat, fish or eggs, or to go fishing or pen 'food animals' in the city, so we could not even sell our chicken sandwiches

Having consumed the evidence of our evil ways, we crossed the surprisingly chilly car park to join L and Vijay for a cuppa. Hot, sweet, milky Indian tea is dispensed in tiny cups at tiny prices. L, Vijay and a couple of lorry drivers were drinking from metal cups but we were, as always, given disposable paper cups. Stalls cannot keep these just for foreigners, because most never see any foreigners, yet they all have them - but who else uses them? In Uttar Pradesh we encountered tea in little earthenware cups, which can be recycled just by dropping them on the ground. Unfortunately, the stall keepers of Gujarat apparently believe the same is true of paper cups with their plastic waterproofing.

No one would be interested in a picture of paper cups, but these are earthenware cups photographed in 2013 somewhere on the road between Allahabad (now known as Prayagraj) and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh

The Ascent of Shatrunjaya Hill

Palitana seemed a tidy town of some 65,000 people. It was a Princely State during the Raj, but a minor one ruled by a Thakur (only worth a 9-gun salute!) not a Maharaja. As in Bhavnagar, the rulers were Gohil Rajputs, but paid tribute to the Gaekwar of Baroda and the Nawab of Junagadh (next post).

We had arrived at 6.30 to visit the Jain temples located on the top of Shatrunjaya hill. As the only way to get there was to walk up the hill, it seemed better to try this in the cool of the morning, than the midday heat.

Shatrunjaya is a major pilgrimage site and a well-made path starts at the edge of town, but first there was a check point where a very polite Sikh security man looked me over. Fortunately, he was more polite than thorough, my leather belt (a no-no in a Jain temple - but essential to stop my trousers falling down) lurked below my untucked shirt, my trainers probably had leather parts and I was carrying plastic water bottles, though inside a canvas carrier slung over my shoulder. ‘Water?’ the security man asked, pointing. I nodded and he waved me through. Plastic is not allowed on the mountain, water is available and the cleanliness is probably alright, but we did not want to risk it. In my defence, I brought the plastic bottles down and disposed of them responsibly - in so far as that is possible in India. We carried no food, vegetarian or otherwise, as that is also not permitted.

The start of the trek up Shatrunjaya
When I was first considering this itinerary I read Wikipedia and was, for a moment, frightened. From Palitana at 66m (217ft), it said, we must climb 3,750 steps to reach the temples at 2,221m (7,288ft). Tripadvisor suggested a reasonably fit person of any age could do the climb in 2-3 hours. I seriously doubted I could manage the equivalent of 2 Snowdons in that time – if at all. Then I realised the average step would have to be an unlikely 60cm high. Wikipedia, I decided, must be in error (and that’s never happened before!)

But they were not wrong about everything, there really are 3,750 steps, though of modest height. The temples are at 603m (according to the same page) and that is manageable, though still quite a climb on a 3.4km long path. The page needs the attention of a numerate editor.

Made it up the first couple of hunded steps towards the Palitana Temples
In some places slogging up the steps was a chore…

A Jain nun follows us up a steep section of the path
….but once we reached the shoulder of Shatrunjaya....

Reaching the shoulder of Shatrunjaya Hill
...the ascent became less unrelenting. Many of our fellow climbers were the idly curious, like us, but those dressed in white were pilgrims; every Jain should make this ascent at least once in their life. The man immediately behind us in the photo below was escorting a sick relative being carried up in a litter. Others, less infirm maybe, but not up to the long slog up the steps could hire a ‘dolly’, a chair slung from a pole (or two) carried on the shoulders of two (or four) men. Two dolly men followed us from the bottom willing, indeed urging, one or other us to run out of steam and take a ride. We are made of sterner stuff and before we reached step 1,000 (painted numbers give encouragement every hundred or so steps) they gave up in disgust.

A pilgrim follows us up a less steep section with a sick relative on a litter, Palitana 
We continued the upward trudge, water stations appearing every so often. Descending Jain nuns passed us in white dresses and short white socks, skipping swiftly down the steps in a way I used to be able to do some decades ago. They were all smaller and lighter than I am, and most were considerably younger, but not all. I have no idea what time they set off to be already descending, but it must have been early even if they ran up and skipped down. The temples are so sacred that no one, not even a priest, is permitted to spend the night on the hill.
Approaching a water station of Shatrunjaya Hill
150 species of bulbuls, medium-sized passerine songbirds, live throughout Africa and southern Asia. In Malaysia we saw yellow-vented bulbuls by the thousand, on this walk every bush was alive with red-vented bulbuls, perching, hopping and singing. Not all bulbuls are named for the colour of feathers round their ‘vents’, there are brown-eared and hairy-coated bulbuls (among many others) though bulbuls have neither ears not hair. The vocal talents of red-vented bulbuls have made them valuable as cage birds and resulted in them being introduced into assorted pacific islands, the USA (notably Florida and Hawaii) and Argentina. They are on the IUCN* list of the World's Worst 100 Invasive Species, but not here, this is their native heath.

Red-vented bulbuls on Shatrunjaya Hill
We soon reached a second shoulder from which we had a fine view back over the path we had followed and the town of Palitana in the plain below.

Palitana and the path of our ascent
We paused on a flat section below the final ascent. The temple complex is visibly above and to the right of Vijay’s head.

Lynne and Vijay on Shatrunjaya Hill
Vijay told us not to stare, but to turn casually and glance away from the path towards a small stand of trees. There we saw a group of a dozen or more men sitting in the shade; they were obviously bare-chested but there was a little more (or perhaps less) to them than that.

Jainism would not be a religion if it did not have schisms. The earliest and most important, between the Digambara and Svetambara, probably occurred in the 1st century CE, each accusing the other of departing from traditional teachings. There are differences in doctrine, iconography and sacred texts, but to the layman the most obvious disparity is that Svetambara ascetics wear white (the word means ‘white-clad’) while Digambara means ‘sky-clad’. We were looking at a group of sky-clad Digambara monks.

 Taking the Jain principal of aparigraha (non-attachment to material possessions) to extremes they live and travel naked owning nothing (not even a begging bowl) beyond a picchi a broom of discarded peacock feathers used to gently remove insects from their path.

80% of Jains hold to the Svetambara tradition and the Digambara stronghold is in Karnataka, 1,000km south, where it is rarely if ever cold enough to need clothes, so they were a rare sight in Palitana. We visited the very old, very large and very beautiful statue ofa sky-clad Gomateshvara in Karnataka in 2010.

A long flat section led us to the final climb.

Approaching the final ascent, Shatrunjaya Hill
The last ascent was easy, 3,750 steps had passed more quickly and less painfully than we had thought possible. Eating is not allowed on the mountain, but an exception seemed to be made for a man sitting outside the walls of the temple complex selling yoghurt. We ate yoghurt, sweetened with honey and dusted with cinnamon, from stone bowls with wooden spoons - nothing could have tasted better. It was not yet 9 o'clock when we put away our cameras and entered the complex.

Palitana Temple Complex, Shatrunjaya Hill

I do not know how many temples there are on Shatrunjaya Hill. Various figures are quoted 750,  863 and ‘more than 900’ but it depends on what you call ‘a temple’. The tendency among both Jains and Hindus is to describe even the tiniest shrine or a statue set up on the roadside as a ‘temple’, so almost any number is ‘correct’.

It might be true that this is the world’s largest temple complex and the whole mountain is the Jain community’s most sacred pilgrimage place site. It is probably true that building started here in the 11th century but most extant temples are 15th century or later. It is undoubtedly true that photography is strictly forbidden.

In 2018 I took a photograph in Ranakpur Temple in Rajasthan of a sculpture/schematic representation of the temples on Shatrunjaya Hill. I doubt it will help the reader’s visualisation, but the other Ranakpur photographs will give an idea of what Jain Temples looks like.

Depiction of the Shatrunjaya Hill temple Complex, Ranakpur Temple, Rajasthan
Despite its beauty, history and wildlife Gujarat attracts few tourists and not many of those climb all the way up the hill, so it was just us and the Jain pilgrims. The Anandji Kalyanji Trust was set up in 1720 to look after the temples and still ensure their beauty is maintained and well cared for – a job they now also do at several other temples including Ranakpur and Chittorgarh. Fortunately, the relatively wealthy Jain community is willing and able to donate the considerable sums required for the Trust’s work.

The complex has a peaceful, almost spiritual air and I felt it was wrong to try to steal a photograph. I will, though, borrow one from Wikipedia, which may itself have been illicit but is now available for all.
One of the Palitana Temples,
photo by Bernard Gagnon, reproduced under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
After all the steps it took to get there, there were many more in and between the temples. Eventually, in a temple on the southern peak, we emerged onto a balcony and found the whole complex laid out before us. It was a breath-taking sight and I reached for my camera before spotting I was being watched.

As we headed for the exit our path gave a view which was almost as good, and this time there was no one around.

The Palitana Temple Complex, Shatrunjayah Hill
I left the complex annoyed with missing the first opportunity, but perversely disappointed with myself for showing disrespect to our hosts by taking a photo at all.

Back Down to Palitana

The descent was quicker but hurt more, my arthritic knees reminding me at every step how much they dislike the controlled lowering of my bodyweight.

Heading back don Shatrunjayah Hill
About halfway down we were waiting while Vijay fetched some water and a voice behind us asked ‘Where do you two come from?’ Turning we found the speaker was a sari clad young woman perched on a wall. We gave our usual ‘between Birmingham and Manchester,’ reply which references at least one place most people have heard of. ‘I come from Northampton,’ she said. On that basis we offered a less vague location. She spoke mildly accented English with great confidence, and said she was staying with her sister (sat next to her on the wall) in Rajkot and seemed impressed that we had made it all the way to the top. We chatted until Vijay returned, then wished each other well and we headed on down.

It was becoming seriously hot and my knees were feeling weaker and weaker. We started to encounter people we recognised from the German coach party we had met in our hotel last night. They were not young, and some were already on the way down – we knew they had not been to the top – while others were looking at the numbers on the steps and deciding to give up. Rising at 5 o’clock been a challenge, but we were glad we had; we would have given up just as quickly in the midday heat.

My knees held it together to the bottom and walking on the flat to the car was like floating on air.

Lunch at the Vijay Vilas

Vijay had decided lunch would be in the countryside at the Vijay Vilas. Leaving town we encountered a street closure, the road having slipped into a small river. L, our driver, had shown an impressive knowledge of the highways and byways of Gujarat but the forced detour through a complicated residential area was the one time we saw him hesitant about how to get from where he was to where he wanted to be.

After some trial and error, we found the other end of the closure and headed off down tiny roads into deep country.

Vijay Vilas, outside Palitana
Vijay Vilas Palace was built in 1906 as a hunting lodge for the ruling Gohil Rajputs and is now a heritage hotel run by relatives of the current Thakur. It is a little down at heel, a house whose glory days are over, but they provided us with a fine (and substantial) vegetarian lunch.

Lunch at the Vijay Vilas, near Palitana

On to Sasangir

Five hours driving took us further west to Sasangir. All Indian road trips are interesting, but we were too tired to take much notice as we trundled across largely empty, flattish land.

Sasangir, the last haunt of the Asiatic lion, is one of Gujarat’s few real tourist centres and we checked in to the local branch of the upmarket Taj Hotel group.

The hotel also has a booze shop; we had not finished the bottles we bought in Ahmedabad (not both of them, anyway) but this was the only other shop on our itinerary. My licence allowed me two bottle every ten days and we were a few day’s short so Lynne had to apply for a licence. The process was simpler than it had been in Ahmedabad; (see Ahmedabad, Liquor Licences, Mosques and Tombs) the shop was in the hotel so all the necessary information was to hand – and the hotel employees’ attitude was helpful rather than officious.

After our large lunch we decided to skip dinner and with another pre-dawn start tomorrow we opted for an early night.

* International Union for Conservation of Nature

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