music in the park

street musicians are rare in chittagong. in addition to the noise of car horns and rickshaw bells, there are few good sidewalks. but i did come across the man below, who played and sang in a small park. 

nepal: humans and other animals

 

nepal: pashupatinath

here are photos from pashupatinath temple. this is the largest and most significant hindu temple in kathmandu. it is a place where the bodies of many nepalis are brought to be cremated. it is built along a river, and there are a number of ghats - places with steps lead down to the river. after being prepared for cremation, the bodies are burned by the ghats, and the ashes placed into the river. in sharp contrast to a wake, or funeral home, it is very public way to carry out the final rites for the dead. 

mother and baby monkey overlooking pathupatinath

cremation at the ghats

nepal: bhaktapur and changu

here are some photos from bhaktapur, a town just outside of kathmandu. bhaktapur is fairly small, and its citizens have been careful to preserve its historical structures. the main part of the town is largely a pedestrian zone, and has been listed by UNESCO as a world heritage site.

many of the inhabitants of bhaktapur are newars. the newar people are one of the principle ethnic groups in nepal (the words "nepal" and "newar" are related). they are especially well-known for their close family ties and their skill in crafts such as pottery and metal-working.

durbar square, bhaktapur

 

changu is one of the oldest religious sites in nepal (my guide told me it was the oldest), dating back to the 4th or 5th century. it sits atop one of the hills overlooking the kathmandu valley. the hindu temple there is dedicated to the god vishnu.

 

on the way from bhaktapur to changu, we stopped at the home of my guide for lunch. they didn't speak much english, so communication was limited. my guide, radha, is a young man in his 20s. he lives with his family just outside of bhaktapur. here is a photo of his uncle:

nepal: kathmandu

here are some photos from my trip to nepal this past weekend. there are three main cities in the kathmandu valley - kathmandu, patan, and bhaktapur. there are dozens and dozens of temples and palaces. during the medieval period, the valley was ruled by the malla dynasty, and a lot of the structures were built during this time. many places of worship, however, are centuries older.

in addition to the imposing and historic structures, there are small temples and shrines throughout these cities. many are tucked into a corner or along a walking path. people tend them and use them regularly, ringing a bell on the way to school or placing a flower on a buddha statue before going to work. even the most famous of the sites, such as swayambunath and boudhanath, are active places of piety (and not just tourist destinations). going to boudhanath in the morning, one finds hundreds of people walking clockwise around the stupa, saying prayers, offering candles, and turning the prayer wheels. 

kathmandu durbar square

boudhanath stupa

morning prayer at boudhanath stupa

prayer wheels

woman preparing candles at swayambhunath temple

view from swayambhunath stupa

so pleased

in my intro to political philosophy class, we are reading plato's republic. one of the curious features of the republic is that socrates proposes to investigate justice in a person by first investigating justice in the city:

We say, don’t we, that there is a justice that belongs to a single man, and also one that belongs to a whole city? …Perhaps, then, there will be more justice in the larger thing, and it will be easier to discern. So, if you are willing, let’s first find out what sort of thing justice is in cities, and afterward look for it in the individual, to see if the larger entity is similar in form to the smaller one. (Book II)

 

its not clear that socrates' strategy makes any sense. to see the problem, suppose that we were trying to investigate health in a mouse. would it make sense to first investigate health in an elephant, on the grounds that elephants are bigger, and then use that to understand health in the mouse? what counts as healthy in a mouse is different than what counts as healthy in an elephant. in the same way, how can we assume that justice in the city will be the same as justice in the soul?

i put this question to my students today (with white-board drawings of mouse & elephant, and person & city).

right away, one of my students from nepal answered: the difference is that a person is a part of a city, just like a cell is a part of a body. a mouse, however, is not part of an elephant. so justice in the person and city are related in a closer way. and the city will be just only if the people within it are just.

i was so pleased by this answer - already thinking in terms of parts and wholes! and this is the same student who, on the first day of class, was skeptical of democracy and spoke in favor of monarchy! perhaps she has been reading ahead, or perhaps she comes from a long line of nepali platonists.