The Monastery

The monastery that we stayed at was named Bylakuppa, it claims to be about 600 years old, at is considered by the locals as the Golden Temple. There are about 4000 monks in the area, as there is actually several monasteries combined into one big one. Most of the monks are refugees form Tibet that have come here to maintain their faith and way of life. India is very supportive of refugees coming from Tibet, and welcome them.
The main reason that it is referred to as the Golden Temple is the main temple has been painted a very bright gold color and can be seen for miles. I would guess the temple itself is about ten stories high with a very large arch at the top rising another 20-30 feet from the top of the temple. If you think of Buddhist temples or any traditional Chinese buildings, they are built in tiers or levels, each one getting smaller. That is how this temple is built, and the arch on top starts on a mid level tier, but circles over the top of the temple. They have then put large figures/ornaments (possibly ten feet high) within this circle, hanging on the inside. I think the best way to describe it is to say it looks like a ferris wheel on top of the building. The main walls of the building are painted bright blue, and the roofs of each tier are painted gold. The circle is both blue and gold with the ornaments being painted in gold. This main building can be seen for miles around as it is the only building that tall for many more miles around.
We were not allowed into the Golden Temple, but we were able to enter several of the smaller temples at the monastery. Whenever I think of monasteries I always imagine something I’m sure I’ve see in movies; small and quite. Nice green grass with lots of trees for shade and water falls/fountains with benches in front of them for quite contemplation. Monks here and there going about their chores, maybe some chanting off in the distance. There is always a feeling of peace as you walk around the grounds able to loose yourself at any moment.
NOT! There was green grass, which they had fenced off so you couldn’t walk on it. With 4000 monks thats probably not a bad idea. They did have nice gardens, they were kept up, and there were trees, but a feeling of serenity.... nope! There are 4000 monks here. It felt more like army barracks than something a monastery should feel like. There were monks everywhere, all dressed in the same thing and moving about doing their tasks, it made you feel like you were sitting in the middle of an ant pile.
In one of the buildings there were a handful of monks playing some music. The instruments they used were very basic and prehistoric so the sound was also very basic, and the chanting didn’t sound like the gregorian chant CD’s that I have. I must say that it was a big let down based on my preconceived notions of what to expect. Thanks Hollywood!
The temples however where a different story. Most of the smaller temples from the outside looked like standard square buildings, something you might see on a campus of a university, or a group of government buildings. All being several stories high, with lots of windows and some decoration, but not like the main golden temple. Most of the buildings also had lights strung up on them in a draping fashion. You wouldn’t know you were entering a temple based on the outside of the building.
Once you got to the doors, however, the unknown would be left behind. The doors on the temples to enter were huge. 10 - 12 feet hight and 4 -5 feet wide. They they both opened like french doors the entry was grand and magnificent. The doorways themselves were carved of designs, each temple being different, and were all brightly colored; reds, yellows, golds, blues, greens. Sometimes to the sides, or above the door would be small statues of mythical creatures, like dragons and such. (If any of you reading this are buddhist, sorry, I haven’t done any research into this.)
Once inside the temple you can be transported to another place. If the temple was free of decoration, it would be a very large, very square room with support columns. The structure itself is a very basic design. Support columns every so many feet, level ceiling, and lots of windows on all sides except the back side. This of course is looking and the building free of ornamentation.
Each of the support columns are decorated with extremely colorful fabrics that run from the ceiling all the way to the floor which is about 40 feet high. Colors, designs, symbols, tassels, embroidery! In-between the columns are large columns of fabric, once again in more colors than you can imagine, hanging from the ceiling almost to the floor and were about 4 feet in diameter. We had to duck to walk under these. Its really hard to describe what this looked like. It all fit so well, yet as I looked closely, there appeared to be no rhyme or reason for the choice of colors or designs. It was so busy everywhere, up close is didn’t look good, but when viewed as a whole it was spectacular. It was truly a color fairy tale, an image from Dr. Suess, or maybe every holiday all thrown into one!
The back of these buildings were very similar. They all held three very large statues. One large one in the middle and two slightly smaller ones on each side. I will now write a quote from a plaque in one of the temples to explain;

“The statue of Lord Buddha is 60 feet in height (from the base) where as the height of other two statues of Guru Padmasambhava and Buddha Amitayus are 58 feet. They are made of copper, plated with gold. Inside the statues are scriptures, relics of great beings, small clay mould stupas, and small statues, which symbolize the body, speech and mind of the Buddhas. Seeing these statues, venerating them, circumambulating and making offerings to them generates faith, peace, wisdom, loving kindness and compassion in our minds and cleanses unwholesome thoughts and actions.”

We spent the entire morning walking around this place. At one point there was a school field strip of students from a village near by that came into one of the temples and they were being told about the temple and how one worshipped in a Buddhist temple. There were also a few other westerners walking around, which did surprise me, based on the location of this monastery. We were in the middle of now where, off any beaten track. If you passed through this town to get from one major place to another that would make sense, but you must go out of your way from anywhere to get here!
I’m very thankful to Ajay for suggesting that we spend the night here and visit the monastery during the morning hours before we returned to the wedding. We would not have had time in the afternoon to visit before heading back to Mysore. Its back to the wedding now!