while staying in cox's bazar, we took a day trip to ramu, which is a small town nearby. there is buddhist temple there, that sits at the top of a small hill. at the bottom is an enormous, beautiful tree.
the head monk showed us around and explained their relics to us - including (supposedly) a piece of the buddha's breastbone, kept inside one of the statues. there are several monks (or perhaps monks-in-training, i'm not sure) who live at the monastery. there are also people who come there to worship and pray, or to sit and sleeping. i can see why people would spend an afternoon resting there - it was a quiet, peaceful space, in a country that is often crowded and noisy. the light inside the temple came through skylights that had a green tint, so everything inside was bathed in a greenish light.
they gave us water and apples, and we sat with them for while. if i understood him correctly, the monk said that the temple site dates back to several hundred years B.C. it was destroyed, however, during the mughal period. it was then rebuilt in the early 20th century. they are now trying to secure funds for more archaeological investigation at the site, and to develop a small museum.
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| jolie (a prof at AUW) is on the right |
I've always found the concept of "relics" really interesting. I kind of like it, actually. Because as much as a lot of us humans (American humans, anyway) sometimes sidle up to some kind of marginal gnosticism about what we purport to "really" be important in life, deep down in our guts we still understand the power of the concrete and tangible.
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