We must be nearing our second stop, in theory Benares’ most famous site, the Golden Temple.
In practice it is little visited by foreigners these days since the bombings and the subsequent security siege. The whole section of the Chowk around the Golden Temple and the Aurangzeb Mosque was sealed off after a number of bomb blasts across Varanasi in 2006 and 2010, supposedly—and it is unproven—sent with the blessings of the Muslims from the neighboring mosque, the self-styled Indian Mujahadeen. The “problem” is that the whole site was originally a Hindu temple until it was sacked, along with the rest of the city, by the Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb six hundred years ago. As the Afghan Moghuls were replaced by Indian Moghuls and then the East India Company, the Hindus felt confident enough to rebuild their temple on its original site next to the Aurangzeb Mosque. “Next to” was a bit too close for the Muslims, who have tried to bomb their point of view across. There is no security at all entering the Aurangzeb Mosque; the mosque is exquisite, its followers somewhat less so: the terror traffic is strictly one-way.
And very effectively sealed off it is too. There is double frisking to enter into the Golden Temple complex—it’s a sort of self-contained shrine-village—and then double frisking again to enter the temple itself. Those who have been frisked before delving around the holy sites of Jerusalem will feel equally safe around the Golden Temple. In theory non-Hindus are not allowed but in practice that means non-Muslims; Shailesh and Sita have to show their ID and their name will reveal their religions, Hindu and Christian respectively; foreigners will have to show their passports and a small gesture—twenty rupees is recommended—in the security donation box is much appreciated. Again, with a Hindu guide life becomes a lot less complicated.
(The Indian Equator)
Looking back into the temple—and in spite of the reality of ape terror and the threat of Islamic terror—one has to be impressed by all the outpourings of gold that give the temple its name. Like a local population census, no-one is at all sure of the exact weight but something like eighteen hundredweight of pure gold went onto the temple roofs. It was donated by the Maharaja of Lahore, now in Pakistan, an ironic twist to the terror tactics against the object of his largesse.
(The Indian Equator)