Sujata Village Fan Club -Indian Life-

World Heritage “Mahabodhi Temple” is  in Bodhgaya, India,  just across Nyranjana river  from healing Sujata village. You can cross the river by walk  except rainy season and  it’s only 15-minute-walk from the village.     (5 minutes by autorickshaw)   Mahabodhi Temple is circled in yellow  in the picture below  taken from Sujata village. It is more like desert than river  at this moment… Buddha also walked this Nyranjana river  from Sujata village to Bodhgaya,  after   a daughter of the landlord Sujata offered him milk rice.  And he got enlightened  under the banyan tree of Bodhgaya. As one of the holy sites  related to Lord Buddha,  Buddhists from all over the world  come here to worship.   Tibetan monks are repeating  placing knees, hands and forehead  on the ground to show utmost resp...

From Sujata village of mango season, in India. I shared three ways of  eating unripen green mango  in Sujata village in last article. Today, I present you the third way,  how to make green mango juice! Young nice guy from the village  cooked the juice.  His name is Anand,  same name as Buddha’s favorite disciple.   He is a reliable vice manager  of the guest house  ‘ SACHI HOME – Sujata Yoga Resort ’. He loves the village very much  and also good-looking, isn’t he? He only took three months Japanese lesson, but he speaks Japanese quite well. One day, he suddenly said to me in Japanese, “I make mango juice today.  Please taste!” And picked four mango from the tree of the garden  and started to boil!!! You boil it!!! “Yes, we boil it  until it gets tender.” Other procedure carries on while boiling. He started roasting one of s...

  Mango trees in Sujata village  are loaded with fruit.   You will see boys  picking fruit with long stick  if you walk through village. I once thought  the fruit is already ripen  but the truth is that  the fruit is still green.  Hard and sour. It takes a little bit more time  for the mango  to get sweet and creamy  you know well. Ok, here is a quiz for you.   Why do boys pick up  hard and sour  green mango?   Choose the answer  from among the three!!! 1. They make fruit sweetened  with chemical 2. They eat green mango as they are. 3.They make juice. The answer is… All are correct!     A villager told me  that if you put green mango  inside white powder,  it become sweet after one night. Villagers say  that all the sweet mango...

From Sujata village, India. “Naashta ho gaya?” I asked Amjad-ji in Hindi,  “Have you finished breakfast?”. I was just excited to use  the Hindi phrase  which I recently remembered. But Amjad-ji and  the young Indian man  next to him  both smiled confusedly. I wondered,  “Was my Hindi wrong…?” Actually, it wasn’t. “I’m on fasting” ,  Amjad-ji answered. Oh, sorry for asking! He is a Muslim living in India. India is famous for Hinduism,  but there exist  many kinds of religions actually. Buddhism, Islam, Christianity,  Sikhism and Jainism etc. No matter what religion he or she belongs,  everybody believes in his or her God  and it seems they respect  different religions each other. From 16 th of May to 14 th of June,  Muslim people don’t eat nor drink  from dawn until sunset  because it is a month of R...

This is the last article about the movie  “Three holly temples of Sujata village”  taken by the Indian government. Have you seen the movie already? If not, click below and check it out! In last two articles,  I shared about 1. Saraswati temple   and  2. Shiva temple .  Today,  I introduce you  Dharmanaya temple       Dharmanaya temple locates  the outskirts of the village  and it’s about 0.5km from  Shiva temple .     From ancient times,  local people kept praying  for having babies at this temple.  They hold pooja,  Hindu worship.   More than 150,000 people participated Yaggya,  fire ceremony at this place. “Yaggya ceremony”   To a big well in the temple,  people throw offerings  used in pooja ceremony  for their ancestors.   This means series of pooja for ...

Have you seen the movie about  “three holly Hindu temples in Sujata village”  made by the Indian government? If not yet, check the movie below. I shared “ Saraswati temple ”  as the first sacred temple in the last article.   In this article,  I introduce you the second one,  “Matangvapi Temple”  commonly known as Shiva temple . There are many Shiva lingam indeed. A column indicated by yellow arrow is also a lingam. Flowers are left after pooja, Hindu worship. According to legend… Once upon a time,  there lived a sadhu (monk)  named Matang. He kept meditating  by the way in the holly books  to meet and talk with God. In times long ago,  before Buddha appearance,  Sadhus meditated  not for enlightenment  but for Meeting God. One day,  finally Brahma came out  in front of Matang...