Jama Masjid, Delhi

Posted on April 28, 2025 by admin

Part of the inspiration to visit India was the book City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi (1993) by the admirable Scottish writer William Dalrymple, which I’ve known about for years but only got around to reading late last year. Timing is important in one’s travels, even before going anywhere, and I happened to be reading that book as we discussed going to Japan in the coming winter. In a typical train of thought for me, I figured if we’re already in Japan, how much more effort would it take to go on to India? Some, as it turned out, mostly after we arrived, but worth the effort.

One memorable passage in City of Djinns involved Dalrymple’s visit to Jama Masjid in Delhi, during the end of Ramadan one year. A mass swirl of humanity came to the mosque on that occasion. When we were there in February on an ordinary non-Friday, humanity was mostly represented by tourists, contributing our little bit to the upkeep.

As well we should visit. Extraordinary in its grandness, the place also reminds a North American just how far he is from home.

At the entrance of the prayer hall.

That hints at a history of video crews making, or trying to make, their works on the sly. Equipment doesn’t need to as large as it used to be.

Up.

Once again, what would modern India be without reminders of Mughal power and prestige? The mosque is the work of Shah Jahan I (d. 1666), fifth Mughal emperor, or rather the 5,000 workers hired for the job and supervised by his Grand Vizier. “Indians, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Europeans” were among the workers, according to Wiki.

The mosque commands a hill in Old Delhi, rising on the edge of the marketplace maze that is Chandni Chowk. Its minarets rise 135 feet.

I didn’t have the urge to make a video at the Jama Masjid of Delhi, but I can see its omnidirectional visual appeal. The Mughal talent for architectural grandness shows up in pretty much every direction.

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, Kamakura

Posted on April 27, 2025 by admin

In my experience, most visits to Japanese cities start by getting off a train. Most, but not all. In Kamakura, it did.

Torii (鳥居) gates also mark a beginning. Gate gates, in other words, though a torii is a special kind of gate, either marking an entrance to a Shinto shrine or the road to a shrine. (Most of the time.) Not far from the Kamakura main train station is one such gate.

Past it is Komachi-dori, which leads almost directly to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. It’s a pedestrian shopping street, which are fairly common in Japan. Less common is that it has a name, since many streets in that country do not. Addresses are determined by increasingly small subdivisions of the land, a system that takes some getting used to, but which seems to work for the Japanese.

Komachi-dori is packed with shops, cafes and restaurants.

Standard souvenirs are widely available. Standard for Japan, that is.

Other places are more unusual, even for Japan. At one shop, you can have a belt custom made.

Who knows, artisanal belts might be the rage now. ¥6000 as of today is a bit less than $42, and in February would have been a little less than $40, and maybe worth it, considering the low quality of mass-produced belts that sell for half that much or so. But we didn’t stop in.

We also took a pass on Kamakura Pig Park.

A place where you can have coffee or tea, and play with “micro pigs,” it seems. I understand there is a trend toward cute animal cafes, often cats. We saw one of those on the street as well.

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine is a large Shinto complex, founded in the 11th century of the Common Era and getting a boost during the Kamakura shogunate not long after. The grounds include some handsome structures, smaller and larger.

The structures aren’t 1,000 years old, owing to the usual cycle of destruction and reconstruction common to wooden buildings. The Meiji government ordered some of the destruction in the 19th century, when it decided that Buddhism and Shinto had to be separate things. Previously rampant syncretism between the two in Japan had been the order of the day, but apparently that would never do, and so a fair number of sacred sites were thus destroyed, including structures at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu.

The stairs to the main sanctuary.

The “semi-mythical” Emperor Ojin, according to a sign in Japanese and English, is enshrined there as a kami. As far as I can tell, there isn’t agreement on whether such a human ruler of that name actually existed back in the first millennium CE, but I expect a niggling little detail like that wouldn’t bother a kami.

Prayers.

Speaking of torii, these mark the path to a sub-shrine, Maruyama Inari.

Small, but that is presumably all the god of rice, agriculture and prosperity Inari needs, to do whatever it is kami do.

Orloj (The Prague Astronomical Clock)

Posted on April 24, 2025 by admin

They say petty con men hang out at Old Town Square in Prague, looking for marks for the likes of three-card monte or a shell game or bogus currency exchange schemes, which raises the question: who hasn’t heard of those cons? But I have to report that no one approached us at Old Town Square for trickery or anything else. Sometimes it’s good to old men who are essentially invisible.

We had the idea at Old Town Square that we’d see the Church of the Mother of God before Týn, which has a cool church name. Distinctive, anyway, incorporating a very local place name. Týn Courtyard, next to the church, is a small area that hosted visiting merchants at one time, and whose largess helped build the edifice. There has been a church on the site for at least 900 years, with the usual story of modifications, rebuilding, replacement, fires, style changes and of course some sectarian strife now and then.

The church is a little off the square, but not far. In my image, it is behind the monumental memorial to Jan Hus and other Hussites, which dates only from 1915. The church wasn’t open when we dropped by. Too bad, I understand Tycho Brahe is buried near the altar; that would have been worth seeing all by itself.

Across the square is Old Town Hall, dating from the 13th century.

On the opposite side from my image, Old Town Hall is the site of the Orloj – the astronomical clock that doesn’t concern itself with whether most people can read it. The master clockmaker and the few learned men who could read it when it was new probably didn’t concern themselves with that fact either. Why would they?

The crowds don’t go to read it anyway, but to watch the mechanical figures move on the hour. We arrived just as that was happening early on the afternoon of March 12.

“Starting in the 13th century, astronomical clocks began springing up around Europe, using intricate functions to show information such as lunar phases, the position of the sun and moon, and the zodiac at any given moment,” My Modern Met explains.

Work on the Prague clock started a little later than that, in 1410. Again as usual with something that old, modifications and additions and changes and restorations have been made over the years, including as recently as 2018.

“The figurines, which were added in the 1600s, represent four vices [sic, death is a vice?]. Vanity is shown as a man admiring himself in a mirror, a miser holding a bag of gold represents greed, while another strumming an instrument is to show lust or ‘earthly greed.‘ The fourth sculpture, a skeleton, represents death and rings the bell each hour as the other figurines shake their heads.”

After the 1 p.m. movement of the figurines, the crowd thinned out.

If I understand correctly (no promises), the time-keeping aspects of the clock includes three different systems: a conventional 24-hour clock, a 24-clock that whose zero hour is at sunset – both new and competing systems when the clock was built – and an older system of unequal hours, whose length depended on the time of the year, something like the Romans used (12 hours by day, four watches at night), though it is thought to date back to Babylon.

“But the clock is about much more than telling time,” My Modern Met continues. “Two separate wands representing the sun and the moon move around the zodiac ring. The sun moves counterclockwise against the ring, and gives an indication of where the sun and moon are in their orbit around the Earth.

“The moon wand is half white and half black in order to show the current cycle of the moon. Interestingly, the rotation of the ball showing the lunar phases is entirely owed to gravity, something unique in this genre of timekeeping.

“A small golden star shows the position of the vernal equinox and sidereal time based on the Roman numerals.”

Most of that wasn’t anything I could understand just looking up at the clock, and I’m not entirely sure I can piece it together in the comfort of my home office. Still, the intricacies and metalwork are marvels to behold — representing a remarkable store of pre-modern knowledge and mechanical aptitude — and behold them we did.

Dotonburi & Hozenji Temple, Osaka

Posted on April 21, 2025 by admin

There he is, Glico Man.

A lot of people want to emulate Glico Man.

Or at least acknowledge him.

Gilco Man may be a mascot for the Japanese food conglomerate of that name – the Osaka food conglomerate, maker of Pocky sticks – but he’s pretty much a one-trick pony on the sign at least, exuberant at his racing victory. Still, everyone in Osaka knows him, since the sign in one form or another — LED these days, neon before — has been displayed for 90 years over Ebisu Bridge (Ebisubashi) where it crosses the Dotonbori Canal.

Dotonburi is the name of the canal, which is an early Edo period (17th century) enlargement of a river, but it is also the name of the district. A packed place even by Japanese standards, replete with restaurants, bars and other small business, many of whom advertise themselves in highly visual ways. When photographers, pro and casual, want to take flashy nighttime images of Osaka, with walls of neon and LED advertising and crowds filling the pedestrian avenues, Dotonburi is where they go.

We were there during the day, joining the crowds, both on the bridge and on Dotonburi’s side streets.

Nice view from the bridge.

Something I wouldn’t have expected in February, but we did see something similar in December.

When enthusiastic fans of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team really want to celebrate, they jump into the canal. Forty years ago during an especially exuberant moment, they found a life-sized advertising statue of Col. Sanders at a nearby KFC and dropped that into the canal, where it was unrecovered until 2009. The Tigers were pretty much a doormat team during the period when the Colonel was lost – mere coincidence?

A sort of Ferris wheel, looking out over the canal. It wasn’t there in the 1990s. We considered a ride, but it looked like it was moving awfully slow.

One of my favorite features of Dotonburi is the 3D restaurant advertising.

Hidden away in the nearby streets mostly too small for vehicles but well adorned with odd things —

— is Hozenji Temple.

“Built in 1637, Hozenji Temple pays homage to Fudo Myoo, one of five guardians of Buddhism,” notes Travel Japan. “During the 1600s, Namba and the surrounding area of Dotonbori were blossoming as a center for entertainment, with dramatic performances of kabuki and bunraku taking place throughout the district. Even the temple catered to the performing arts, with traditional rakugo storytelling and stage plays performed on site.”

One depiction of the Buddha.

But the temple is better known for its statue of Fudo Myoo.

Covered with moss, he is.

Because the thing to do is toss water on the statue. Keeps him hydrated. I took a turn myself, because who I am to deny Fudo Myoo a nice cup of water?

Church of Saint Nicholas, Prague

Posted on April 17, 2025 by admin

Regards for Easter. Back to posting on April 21.

Old Town Square, Prague, on a gray day in March.

Facing the Old Town Square, though not in those images, is the Church of Saint Nicholas (Kostel svatého Mikuláše), a site with a history as varied as it is long. There was a church there since at least the 12th century and, knowing how these things go, probably some sacred space well before that.

When Hussites had their moment, they used the church. Afterward, Premonstratensians used it, and then Benedictines set up a monastery there. When their time had run its course, the temporarily secularized building was for a time a storehouse, and – a little hard to imagine, but this is what a sign in the church said – a music hall. Religion returned in 1920 in the form of revived Hussites newly independent of Rome, who use the church to this day.

How many Czech Hussites are there these days? World Atlas asserts fewer than 40,000, which is fewer than 0.4 percent of the population. But that hardly counts as a long-term win for this particular Counter-Reformation, if you can call it that. The largest categories of religion in the modern Czech Republic are “Undeclared” and “No Religion,” totaling nearly 80 percent.

The 21st-century visitor to St. Nicholas sees a bit of urban renewal from the 18th century, to use a term that the ecclesiastical authorities who wanted a new building back then surely didn’t use, even in the unlikely event they’d used English. I’ll bet the old Gothic church on the site was worn out and just so 12th century anyway. Out with Gothic, in with Baroque.

Looks like St. George, doing what is expected of him: dealing with the dragon.

Berliner Dom

Posted on April 16, 2025 by admin

My friend Steve and I crossed into East Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie on the morning of July 9, 1983, and headed for Museum Island. A heady time for us: lads out seeing the world, including a slice behind the Iron Curtain, a political situation that predated our existence. I’m sure that had you asked me at that moment, I’d have predicted that the world was going to be stuck with it for the rest of our lifetimes at least. It didn’t even last the decade. 1989 was quite a surprise.

That evening I wrote: “We looked at a small, roundish church, then Humboldt U., then we found ourselves at the Cathedral. Nice, but a wreck inside.”

That “small, roundish church” must have been St. Hedwig’s Cathedral (St.-Hedwigs-Kathedrale), which is in fact the Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Berlin and not particularly small. But maybe it seemed that way in comparison to a lot of other very large buildings we saw that day, including the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), which is part of the Evangelical Church in Germany and technically not a cathedral, but never mind.

I didn’t have a camera in ’83. Italics because who would believe it now? Steve had a point-and-shoot, and some months later, he sent me some physical prints from our visit, including one of the Berliner Dom.

The Fernsehturm TV tower is in the background. Either we didn’t have time for it in ’83 or it wasn’t open to tourists – it’s the kind of thing I would have done – and in ’25 we decided that 30+ euros was too much for an observation deck.

My return to the Berliner Dom was on March 7, 2025, this time with my brother Jay. Now, of course, point-and-shot cameras are worlds better than they used to be, and filmless, and you can slip them in your pocket when not in use.

The DDR might have built an impressive TV tower, but the state never got around to restoring the interior of the Berliner Dom, though the dome itself was replaced. The wreck of the original dome still lingered on the cathedral floor back then. If I remember right, one peered from a balcony down on the rubble in ’83. Interior restoration came much later, completed in 2002.

A gushingly ornate design, but impressive, by 19th-century German architect Julius Carl Raschdorff.

Walking up to the dome was possible, but we decided too many steps were involved. I would have in ’83, as I did at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s and other enormous churches, but I’m not that young man any more.

The crypt level was closed, unfortunately, so no visiting the many Hohenzollerns therein. But not Wilhelm II, who had the cathedral built. He’s still in exile in the Netherlands.

The Lotus Temple

Posted on April 15, 2025 by admin

For a religion with at most 6 million adherents (maybe) – fewer than 0.1 percent of the people on Earth — the Baha’i Faith has created some remarkable temples, all around the Earth. Until recently, we’d been acquainted in person with only one of them, the extraordinary Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. Especially when we lived closer to that part of metro Chicago, it was a go-to place to take out-of-towners.

Now we’ve experienced another remarkable Baha’i edifice: The Lotus Temple (Kamal Mandir) in Delhi, set in an enormous green space in the southern reaches of that city. Green, but inaccessible to casual visitors, and probably for good reason, considering the volume of people that visit. We were among the crowd in late February.

More green space than one would think possible in Delhi, but the land was acquired by Baha’i adherents in 1953, using money left to them in the will of one of the faithful from Hyderabad. The city may have been large then, but not what it would become later. The temple was built from 1977 to 1986.

Designed by Fariborz Sahba, an Iranian architect and Baha’i who long ago left his homeland for North America, the structure includes 27 free-standing marble-clad “petals” arranged in clusters of three, forming nine sides, and surrounded by nine pools as the key landscape feature. Apparently nine sides is mandatory for Baha’i temples. This aerial image is quite striking, though invisible to ordinary tourists.

“There is a deep and universal reverence for the lotus in India,” Sahba said in a 2015 interview. “It is regarded as a sacred flower associated with worship throughout many centuries and therefore its significance is deeply rooted in the minds and hearts of the Indians.

“In the epic poem Mahabharata, the Creator Brahma is described as having sprung from the lotus. In Buddhist folklore the Buddha is represented as being born from a lotus, and is usually depicted standing or sitting on a lotus. It is also deeply rooted in the Zoroastrian and Islamic architecture; for example, the dome of the Taj Mahal is bud of a lotus.”

The Lotus Temple – formally a House of Worship, like the other Baha’i temples around the world – is a popular place. One source claims 3 million visitors a year, which would put it in the same league as the Taj Mahal (though sources offer rather varied numbers for that; it’s in the low millions anyway).

We waited 15 minutes or so to get in. No photography inside, which is a sweeping and unadorned, just as the Baha’i temple in Illinois and elsewhere. That too is a defining characteristic of the temples worldwide.

“The prayer hall is plain and has no altars or religious idols, pulpits, or fixed speaker platforms,” writes Mari Yariah, a Malaysian Baha’i who volunteered at the Lotus Temple for a couple of months. “There are no rituals or ceremonies. No talks or sermons are delivered…

“The prayer hall has a capacity for 1,300 visitors to be seated on the benches. There is capacity to increase the number to 2,500… Visitors were allowed to remain in the prayer hall for as long as they desired. Special prayer services are held four times throughout the day at 10 am, 12 noon, 3 pm, and 5 pm. [We weren’t there for any of those.] During these prayer sessions that last for about ten minutes, scriptures from various religions were read out or chanted in melodious voices.”

Jain Shwetambar Shree Sambhavnath Prabhu Derasar, Delhi

Posted on April 14, 2025 by admin

On foot is pretty much the way to go when you’re on the twisty little market streets of the Chandni Chowk district of Delhi. That includes where we found ourselves, at the smallish slice around a street called Khari Baoli, where vendors sell spices, herbs, nuts, dried fruits, herbs, pickles and preserves and an effusion of other edible goods.

There has been a market at Chandni Chowk since Old Delhi wasn’t old, or even much of a city, and from what I’ve read, the variety of goods is well-nigh inexhaustible. These days, it’s a good place to wander. Always something to see, but also a good idea to keep your eyes on the ground, which wasn’t entirely smooth or level. Come to think of it, neither were the wires overhead, but at least you aren’t at risk of a trip and fall because of them.

Took in the aromas. Dodged foot traffic. Heard the muffled roar of people and machines. Kept aware of our valuables at all times. Bought some tea.

Examined ornate doors.

Something unexpected was behind this one: a Jain temple.

Jain Shwetambar Shree Sambhavnath Prabhu Derasar.

Our friendly guide for a few minutes. A lay volunteer, I think. Otherwise the temple was empty that morning.

The last time I thought much about Jainism was in a VU class focused on Dharmic religions, except for a brief visit some years ago to a Jain temple in suburban Chicago, a colorful and sedate place. Even in class we didn’t study the religion long, with a few days for it and Sikhism tucked in between Hinduism and Buddhism.

I remember a bit, and I’ve read a little more. Sounds pretty strict, but if you’re going to be strict about something, nonviolence seems like a good choice, though I suspect that such an attitude has inspired more aggressive members of other religions to take whacks at Jains down the centuries. As an ancient religion, the fine points of its origin are debated, including how much of an offshoot of Vedic religion it is, or how much it is or isn’t like Buddhism. The founder isn’t really considered the founder, but one who understood what the universe had been saying for a long time.

In any case, I’m sadly unfamiliar with Jain iconography. Our guide had a few words to say about some of the works, and I’m sure he was knowledgeable, but it didn’t stick with me.

But I know stunning work when I see it. Glasswork, especially.

Glasswork that tells stories.

The details might be opaque, but you can see a lot is going on.

Tsuyu Tenjinsha Shrine (Ohatsu Tenjin), Osaka

Posted on April 13, 2025 by admin

Tucked away in the Umeda district of Osaka – a sort of downtown, with a heavy concentration of office, hotels and retail, along with the city’s busiest train station – is a Shinto shrine whose early history tends to be described (in English, anyway) using such phrases as “said to be” and “legend has it.”

While crossing on a pedestrian overpass a few days after arriving in Japan, I noticed the main torii for Tsuyu Tenjinsha Shrine (Ohatsu Tenjin). I must have visited the shrine in the 1990s. But when I got there this time, I had no memory of it. An odd feeling.

Clearly not ancient construction, or even that old. The U.S. Army Air Corps swept the area with a broom of fire in 1945, necessitating a reconstruction a decade or so later. A machine translation from the shrine web site tells of its hazy early centuries.

“[The] shrine was established on its current site, which was one of the small islands in Osaka Bay, to worship Sumiyoshi Sumuji Sone no Kami, and it is one of the former sites of the Naniwa Yasoshima Festival…

“The date of its founding is unclear, but since the Naniwa Yasoshima Festival can be traced back to the third year of the Kasho era (850) during the reign of Emperor Montoku, and the area is said to have been in place by the time of Emperor Kinmei in the sixth century, the origins of this shrine can be inferred to date back to that time.”

One of many such old shrines dotting the Kansai, in other words, many of which may still be around but which are still small, honoring obscure kami. But this one happened to be at the heart of Osaka during the Meiji era boom, and apparently grew with the city.

“The opening of the first Osaka Station in 1894 and Hankyu Railway Umeda Station in 1905 spurred the development of the area, and this shrine has come to be revered as the central guardian deity of Umeda and Sonezaki, in the heart of Osaka’s ‘kita’ [north] area,” the shrine notes.

That may be, but that isn’t why many people go there in our time. They go to offer prayers asking for better fortune in their romantic lives, whatever form that might take. Since I visited only a few days ahead of St. Valentine’s Day – another example of any number of cross-cultural WTFs you can find in Japan – the shrine was thick with prayers written on pink paper hearts.

I understand these slightly more permanent wooden plaques, known as ema, are young girls praying for beauty.

Why is this shrine associated with romance? That’s better attested, and something of an accident of history.

“Today the shrine is better known for its romantic associations, as it is a key setting of the bunraku puppet play: The Love Suicides of Sonezaki,” notes Osaka Station.

“The play tells the tragic story of two star-crossed lovers, the geisha Ohatsu and the apprentice trader Tokubei, and it was supposedly based on a historical double suicide that took place at the shrine in 1703. In the play an unfortunate combination of family pressures, financial misfortune, and the betrayal of a friend, threaten to keep the lovers apart. Unable to live without each other, they meet at the shrine and take their own lives.”

What is the opposite of star-crossed lovers, anyway? Star-aligned, maybe; one of those couples who end up celebrating a diamond anniversary without having grown to hate each other.

The popular name of the shrine, Ohatsu Tenjin, refers to the geisha of the story. Ohatsu and Tokubei are acknowledged at the shrine.

The shrine is surrounded by the buildings of Umeda and from its precincts you can exit into a shopping street. As with most such pedestrian streets in Japan, there are many small eateries.

I didn’t go there, but I can’t say I wasn’t curious.

Jewish Museum in Prague

Posted on April 3, 2025 by admin

One good thing about the historic core of Prague, at least for old visitors, are the small squares (náměstí?) with benches and sometimes trees. Walkability doesn’t mean much if you can’t sit down at regular intervals, and old Prague provides that, unlike some other pedestrian-intense places on this trip (and I mean you, Osaka).

We stopped often at this one, often as our first rest out from the hotel. Once Jay waited here for a few minutes while I wisely went back to the hotel to fetch a cap to wear.

We stopped here more than once as well.

Of course, in early March, the air was distinctly cool, and the squares weren’t so green. Or quite so busy. The views from the first small square looked more like this.

During our first ramble through the old city on March 11, we came across this unnerving figure.

Kafka. Of course. Rub the shoes for luck? Isn’t there only one kind of luck for Kafka, and it isn’t good? The bronze dates from 2003 and inspired by one of his lesser-known stories, “Description of a Struggle,” which I haven’t read, but which sounds Kafkaesque all right.

I had to look up the sculptor, Jaroslav Róna, a resident of Prague and a member of its small but enduring Jewish community. Looks like he specializes in unsettling figures, so Kafka would be right up his alley.

I don’t know whether it is coincidence or not, but the statue happens to be near the Spanish Synagogue (Španělská synagoga). An exceptional piece of work, dating from 1868, built on the site of a much older synagogue. There has been a Jewish community in the city since at least the 10th century of the Common Era.

Now a museum, the Spanish Synagogue – referring to the Moorish Revival style – is part of the Jewish Museum in Prague, which oversees a half-dozen or so structures in the former Jewish quarter, including the aforementioned Pinkas Synagogue and Old Jewish Cemetery.

After decades of misuse and neglect, beginning with the Nazis and continuing under the Communists, the Spanish Synagogue was restored not long after the Velvet Revolution. It is magnificent.

The view from the upper level.

Another synagogue-turned-museum is the Maisel Synagogue (Maiselova synagoga).

What would a Jewish museum in Prague be without mentioning everyone’s favorite clay man animated by one of the names of the Lord? On display at the Maisel.

An active congregation gathers at the Old-New Synagogue (Staronová Synagoga), another of the historic structures.

It was once the New Synagogue, then there was a newer one; so it became Old-New, built in late 13th century of the Common Era. More than one source says that Staronová Synagoga is the oldest active synagogue in Europe.

Yes.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Religious Sites