Belly of the Whale

All day people walk around and around. The path is slate and smooth and warn, maybe ten feet across. On the outside it is bordered by a six inch gutter, beyond that is a wider, broader path. Surrounding this is shops and storefronts, an occational alley or sidestreet, falling into shadow and obscurity, leading away from the center of things.

The center, the axis of the orbiting believers and pedants, inside the wall - the stupa. It has a three tiered base, octagonal, or many sided, low and flat, somewhat downward slanting. On top of the three bottom layers lifts a great dome, white, but stained yellow-brown in broad bands. The dome rises much higher than the tiers to a top where a square, squat steeple rests. It is thick. At its base, on each side, are a pair of eyes. Atop the steeple is a colorful cylinder, like a prayer wheel.

From this high point rains down a torrent of color and motion, prayer flags drooping into the wind and light with their alternating, reds, yellows, blues - fading and glittering, twisting, flapping, or waving in the sun, under the moon, with the rain - always casting the good will, compassion, and wishes of its people to the world. They run down to the wall and there meet more, circling the wall, statue to post, post to pillar, pillar to statue, endlessly circling the stupa, endlessly representing good will.

They hang also from the coves in the wall, the nooks that hide the prayer wheel wheels. The wheels hide behind dark wrought iron and the flags dangling from it. The chanters and walkers reach out and met the handles of the wheels, like paddles to push with their own enertia, spining them, sometimes smooth, sometimes grittily. The wheels themselves are wood, copper and brass covered, covered with mantras in Tibet script. They feel old under the hand if you feel them.

There are several entrances to the inner sanctum, where there are more shrines. At the doors are larger wheels, exposed and ornamented.

The stupa is large surely, but not decorative, Butter is poured over the top in ritual, turning rancid and yellow. The stucco is stained by rain and dirt. What is spectacular, special about this place is the force and impact it has, the place it holds in the lives of the locals and Buddhist around the world. People come to it daily; they walk circles like absolutions, counting prayerbeads in their left hand. There are plenty of monksl, garbed in maroon or red with saffron. But it is the commoners, devote or otherwise, they come and walk or pray or talk, but so many come. It is their place, their community.

At the start of evening when the heat breaks and the sun wanes, shadows start to huddle around the east, people bring out tables and ring them around the inner slate path. They tables they cover with hundreds of brass holders for candles. The candles are for prayers. The walkers, or any who wish, can pay three rupees to light a candle and have your blessings heard. As the light fades, the stupa is cast in a new glow. The candles shake and dance the shadows of Buddhists off the stupa walls and against the store fronts and building further beyond.

The feel is beyond ceremonious, almost surreal though have seen it daily. It moves and ebbs like an ocean. I can't become accostumed to it. I gaze at the candles, occationally light one, but it is too easy to fall into trance. So many people thinking so many things, from so many lands, some so close to home.

Scattered among the tables are the homeless, cripple, and destitude. They beg for alms and pity. Also monks sit in line and chant mantras, durgelike and solemn. I love the deep and gutteral sound - no words, no beginning or end. Dogs run about, the reputed guardians of Boudanath, the stupa.