3,300 steps ... among the walkers seeking blessings

We are with thousands of pilgrims in yet another pilgrimmage centre of India: the vast complex of Jain cut-stone temples – Palitana – their spires, grey, white, tan and gold, sitting atop Mount Shatrunjaya, the hill which conqueuers enemies, rising suddenly from the plains of southern Gujarat. Believers say Shatrunjaya embodies the spirit of sacred mountains in the Himalayas thousands of kilometres to the northeast. Palitana is like Mecca for Muslims, Jerusalem for Christians and Jews, the holiest of holy places.

Like most others (some pay to be carried in dhoolis, swinging chairs hanging from poles carried on men's shoulders), we have climbed the site’s 3,700 steps – wet in sweat, legs burning – to arrive here, although in our case out of curiosity, not, as most people around us, to honour the gods and in quest of blessings. Rituals, ceremonies, worship are everywhere …

Men and women create with one finger many rows of swastika figures (perhaps a precise number of rows across and down) from rice grains spread across tables and trays.

Others bring plates and bowls of fragrant red rose blossoms to offer to dozens of revered figures carved in marble - many representing Adinath, the most revered.

A man climbs the edge of the 3,700 steps, whisking away dried leaves or cow shit, then pulling a red rose from his blue plastic bag and sitting it on the step, then moving up one step. Earlier I have picked up two of these found roses, intent on taking them to the temple gods. Passing him, then watching him climb and whisk and set a rose on each step, I descend again and wordlessly add my two roses to the steps at his feet.

Two young men (these and most men wear white robes fringed in gold or scarlet), carrying a tray of red roses and a book of Jain texts, approach one of the busiest temples sanctums, then kneel, heads touching the floor. One rhythmically reads from the text, and soon both sway and sing in unison, faces ecstatic, above the loud surrounding hubbub.

Hundreds, thousands of people bring offerings of uncooked rice, fruits, coconut pieces, unshelled almonds, garlands of white and red flowers. Some is set before the gods and goddesses, other offerings are left scattered about on the marble floors following more ceremonies. Sweepers move about constantly, gathering large tubfulls as yet more rituals begin.

A row of men, and another row of women sit in what look like crowded, cramped wire-mesh cages. Some purgatory? Penance? We don’t know why and don’t yet know.

Several more men sit crossed legged in front of Jain texts and various postcard-sized cards with images, shuffling them about, then about again, lips murmuring.

All around us, amidst all this piety, is a loud hubbub of people gathering, beckoning one another on to the next activity, arranging themselves on the temple courtyard floors. Every 10 or so minutes a group with harmonium and drums starts playing and singing. A man appears several times as we linger, seeming to be loudly announcing some activity or event somewhere.

The word-picture “asylum” comes to my mind… asylum, but one in the outside day-to-day world where the invented and needed are both fully collective and deeply personal.

No one can doubt the intensity and fervour that many seem to feel here. To the devout of this place the marble and other effigies are vividly alive; we have witnessed this so many times. I am reminded of something V.S. Naipaul writes of a devout Indian acquaintance: “

Here on the mountain I begin to enter a crowded temple, hesitate, turn to go out, then a man in white robe beckons me back, urges me really, clinging my shirt sleeve. I must see the effigy inside. He keeps coaxing me through the crowd until we both have a bead on the golden face of the god far off in a dark chamber where the faithful are passing by one by one. Only when I have seen the god and let him know so, and that I am impressed, is he satisfied. Next to me a woman holds a mirror in one hand, picking up a flickering impression of the far off golden face, while in the other hand she holds a silver fan-shaped object and seems to be waving the image towards her face.

Jains comprise about one percent of Indians but, as wealthy traders and merchants, especially in western India, they wield influence well beyond their numbers. It is they, and Jains around the world, who have built these and other temples in the region for 900 years and they who make their regular pilgrimages.

On the way down the 3,700 steps, we meet one of these Jain merchant-pilgrims. Zaveri (his last name, “My first is too long for most people to remember or say.”) catches up to us and strikes up a conversation. He has a light quick step, all the more so for his 80 years. Betty and I might have taken a few rests. Not Zaveri. And the carriers who haul some people up and down the mountain? He laughs each time they approach us.

A Jain of several generations of Jains, he has been here many times doing puja. He prides himself in being fit and healthy – yoga, other exercises, walking, a strict vegetarian, never drinks or smokes, uses natural medicines (including one of the best he says: rubbing your urine on sore joints and other aches and pains). 

Zaveri is friendly to us, demanding of others. He has been to Toronto once to visit his brother, a Canadian resident of 40 years. “A well-planned city. So clean.” When we point to the cow shit on the steps to this holy place (the walkway does pass through high bush-pasture), he agrees: “It’s terrible. I’ve written to the authorities of this place several times. It would be easy to keep clean but they don’t.”  

He repeats several times that Jains walk everywhere, and his tireless gait seems proof of this. He doesn’t answer when I ask how he made it here from Mumbai, an hour or so distance by plane. Later he introduces us to a nun, approaching his own age, who seems to confirm his point: “I walk India, everywhere. Yes, only walk. Everywhere.” 

As Zaveri keeps skipping easily down the steps, like a damn gazelle, my knees begin to burn, my legs quiver. Betty begins to lag behind. “She’s getting tired?” he asks, empathy and a touch of scorn in the question. 

He invites us to have a snack with him when we arrive at the bottom. “It’s a free service, a gift to everyone who has climbed to the temples. You have done so in good spirit. So I invite you.” There’s something about Zaveri’s invitations that takes courage to refuse. The further we descend, the more tired he senses we are, the more he draws attention to the chai and snacks at the foot of the path. Desperate for a pause, I bend over to tie my shoe lace, he touches my shirt, soaked with perspiration. “You are a little warm. We’ll have that chai soon. You will be my guests. We’ll sit down and keep company. Only a few steps now. We’re almost there.” That might have been Step 2,000 down. Only seventeen hundred to go.

Even with that long painful decent together, there are many things I wish I had been able to ask Zaveri. What were those men and women doing squatting and cramped in those rows of cages alongside the temple? How does the key Jain principle of ahimsa (non-violence, avoiding harm to all souls or jivas, which exist in humans, animals, plants and the elements) work in practice among Jain businessmen? If and when his daughter marries – she with her Ph.D. in Jain religious studies – will she or her parents or both decide on a partner?

The snacks – crisps, sweets and chai – are served in a kind of community hall. He invites – then begins to insist, smiling, that I help him finish his own snacks. Fortunately we have a bus to catch. “When you come to Bombay” (we have said we will most definitely avoid the frenzy of Bombay/Mumbai) “you must call me. We will have some chai. I have an office. Yes, of course, here’s my phone number ….” 

We part amiably, Zaveri still determined to make me share the remaining snacks. But still I have enjoyed this pilgrimming gazelle from Bombay. If I ever again have to walk down 3,700 steps from hill-top temples back to earth, I’ll give him a call.