Varanasi,Dawn Mahabalipuram Mount Athos

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BOEY KIM CHENG
Varanasi,Dawn Mahabalipuram Mount Athos
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Varanasi, Dawn

• famous Hindu holy city situated on the banks of
  the river Ganges (Ganga) in Uttar Pradesh
• a major cultural and religious centre of
  Northern India
• the site of the holy shrine of Lord Kashi
  Vishwasnath (an incarnation of Lord Shiva)
• the name Varanasi was derived from 2 tributaries
  of Ganges one in the north end of the city,
  called Varuna and the other in the south end,
  called Asi (now reduced to a water-drain)

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• ghats the banks of a holy river, and often, at
  Varanasi, steps are built to facilitate bathing
• Mother Ganga called the Holy Ganga, is
  personified in Hinduism as a goddess Maa Ganga
  (Mother Ganga), the foster-mother of Karttikeya,
  son of Shiva and Parvati
• it is believed that taking a dip in the river
  will wash away one's sins, and that having one's
  ashes disposed of in the Ganga after death may
  improve one's next life or even allow Moksha
  (liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth)
  to be attained sooner
• Kali the Dark Mother is a straightforwardly
  benevolent mother-goddess
• home to 2 species of dolphin the Ganges River
  Dolphin and the Irrawaddy Dolphin

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• Concerns
• Religion is questioned as a relief, an entity to
  which we find solace and comfort in.
• The means in which whether religion is used as a
  form of escapism.
• How experience gained through travel can widen
  our perspective and dawn realization on the
  existence of life, through which Journey is a
  search for a place where we can call Home.

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• Religion here is treated as some form of
  novelty. People go on pilgrimages to cleanse
  themselves of their sins.
• Thus seen as escapism, and therefore spiritual,
  holy places like Varanasi have become
  desecrated because the people no longer connect
  with the place and rituals become more of a
  novelty.
• Going on a pilgrimage is one trying to cleanse
  oneself, yet death brings us back into the life
  cycle where the mortal sins exist. Hence, a
  continuation of the rituals and pilgrimage has
  lost its meaning since we are nudged back into
  the cycle.
• Examples of the treatment of religion being used
  as a form of escapism (whole of second verse
  paragraph)
• the bodieshave returned,/clinging to the
  human realm, afraid/to start over again.
  They are nudged/back into the cycle,
• Make/a few comebacks, brave the swamps/of
  desire,
• come back this far when it is over

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• the use of contrasting images of life and death
  is effective in showing us how by gaining a new
  experience, we become truly alive/in the midst
  of death.
• It then links to how we find our Home, a place
  where we feel at total ease. The traveling motif
  represents the search in finding our true selves,
  leading to the Home lying spiritually in
  ourselves, and therefore, the world is home.
• Examples of imagery of life and death
• tiny flames flicker by in cupped leaves,
• Mother Ganga vs Kali,
• dolphin cleaves the water/in a dance of
  light, in counterpoint/to our sorrowful
  music and inscribing its bright
  notes of life against/our ground note of defeat

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Mahabalipuram

• a port city
• named after demon king Mahabali or Pallava king
  Mamalla
• various historic monuments built largely between
  the 7th-9th century, constituting the early
  stages of Dravidian architecture with Buddhist
  elements of design

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Concerns

• We are shown the calming influence of spiritual
  places on us,
• the gradual lost of faith in religion and the
  distorted purposes of religion in todays
  society,
• and how despite religious retreats being places
  where we seek comfort and reassurance, it is but
  temporary and we still need to find our
  individual place of spiritual balance in order to
  achieve some form of self-peace.

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• In Existentialism, a Home is not a physical
  space, but rather, an individual space within us
  where the sense of personal truth reside in.
• the importance of searching for a Home, e.g. when
  the way to find true enlightenment might not
  possibly be through religion, but through the
  understanding of existence, which is constantly
  being there, out in the open/when everything
  conspires to put out the little light we
  possess,/that we discover the stillness in the
  storm, since enlightenment is neither ephemera
  nor eternal.
• This idea of the religion being unable to grant
  us our personal truths can be further found when
  the people are stunned when they view the
  temples, not for religious purposes such as
  pilgrimages(Not by the heavens eloquence, nor
  the surge/of inspiration from the oceans
  depths), but rather, concerned with the physical
  appearance of the temples instead.

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• Thus, the journey to this spiritual space can be
  seen as a quest to seek a Home, a personal
  spiritual enlightenment within oneself (discover
  the stillness in the storm).
• The sage is admired and revered by people and
  they now commemorate that occasion, for the
  sage was brave and courageous enough to have
  carved his insights boldly in stone , making
  evidence of his learning and permanence of it.
  It encourages others as a role model to embark on
  a journey to search for their personal Home and
  by being true to their honest self.

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• The strong sense of energy in the first verse
  paragraph shows restlessness, energy and thoughts
  needing to be released and/or spoken but it is
  not accepted, when the words were rebounded from
  the page.
• Examples of energy portrayed
• worked at a feverish tempo,
• flung into frenzied dance,
• wild-haired, pounds its hearts furies,
  out- thundering/the march.
• the release of energy and unspoken words are not
  accepted
• tapping out words/which rebound from the
  page
• a Beethoven trying to hear himself.

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• Temples are described as being like anchors of
  faith and are personified (meditative poise),
  appearing to be tying us down when the storm
  of the first verse paragraph appears to have
  swept us away. Example
• temples are unmoved
• temples firm presence
• Inner peace is achieved through the awe of the
  temples(We are stunned, lightning flashes
  through our souls) and the calming effects it
  brings. Example
• neutral zone of quiet between the warring
  elements
• gentle breathing of the towers

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• through the use of vivid imagery and
  onomatopoeia, the sheer sense of energy conveyed
  in the first verse paragraph is felt deeply we
  feel
• The personification of the temples better enable
  the poem to exude this calming influence.
• The idea of the journey as a metaphor is used to
  show the pilgrimage to the temples as that of
  self-reflection to search for ones own Home.

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Mount Athos

• Mount Athos means Holy Mountain in Modern
  Greek
• Only monks are allowed to live on Athos and the
  current population numbers around 1,400.
• semantron a wooden or iron plank suspended from
  above and struck with a mallet a traditional
  Orthodox device for announcing the time of prayer
• cyclamen a genus of 20 species of hardy
  flowering perennial herbaceous aestivating plants

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• Concerns
• the distortion of the purpose of traveling to
  spiritual places.
• how do we feel towards religion now
• the commercialization of spiritual
  places as mere tourism spots

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Simono Petra
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Iviron
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• With the advent of modernization, religious
  spaces have become commercialized and
  compromised.
• The actual purpose of visiting such places have
  been distorted, instead of a pilgrimage to
  cleanse sins or finding themselves through
  religion(idea of Home), people are merely
  visiting these places as some kind of novelty,
  showing a distinct lack of respect and
  solemn-ness.
• Examples of distortion of spiritual spaces
• Simono Petra
• Once mighty fortress, now only talk of
  decline,
• the monastery is personified as a resilient
  old man with frail frame,
  weatheredbody, arthritic bones and
  rickety legs.
• Now has to fight off tourists(modern
  infidels) which are doing more harm
  then the elements wearing it away.
• Tourists personified as pirates bent on
  plunder to show the extent that rather
  to worship, their inability to admire and
  savour the treasures for they go
  unpraised by human touch.

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• Examples of distortion of spiritual spaces
• Iviron
• Sarcastic tone where Father Gabriel gives up
  fishing for a sober career and is now
  baited for life in order to attract the
  tourists to the monastery.
• Hints that he is not home with a harvest of
  peace, seen when his spirit slipped its
  moorings to journey back out to the sea.
• people have to be reminded of the mass by the
  sounding of the semantron, supposedly religion
  needs no reminder to hear and believe
• Father Gabriel probably represents religion, and
  how by personifying religion we understand the
  contextual situation of religion in life and how
  it has lost its real meaning, being unable to
  inspire the modern infidels any longer
• Coda
• devout men are seen shuttling/like an
  alien craft/between these islanded monasteries.
  Sense of detachment from religion and that
  religion has lost its real purpose, devout men
  used as sarcasm.

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• Overall Concerns of the 3 Poems
• Finding our own individual space (Home).
• Religions and its places of worship misleading us
  from attaining true Self-Discovery.
• Boey is concerned with the idea of Self-Discovery
  through traveling, with journey as a metaphor.

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• Staying neutral, neither disbelieving nor blindly
  following religion as a mean of Self-Discovery
• Not misled nor guided in any particular direction
  and to seek true Self-Discovery through journeys
  to open new perspectives of life
• Varanasi, Dawn
• the quiet glow on the water is enough to
  tell us that we are home, for the world is
  home.
• though the bodies had already floated out,
  it clings to the human realm,/afraid to
  start over again.
• Mahabalipuram
• words/which rebound from the page nothing
  follows a fixed rule and we need to seek our
  own solutions
• Beethoven trying to hear himself against
  the out- thundering march orchestrated by
  the gods above who try to prevent us from
  truly knowing and understanding ourselves

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• the journey to Self-Discovery is experienced
  through traveling and journeying itself, for that
  is when we find the stillness in the storm,
  rather than engaging in pilgrimages for the sake
  of cleansing oneself and religious practices not
  strongly believed in
• Through visiting spiritual spaces we gain more
  knowledge, enhance our experiences, and enables
  us to be at Home (spiritually, and experience
  emotional balance), which is why the world is
  home, for we are constantly gaining experiences
  and new insights into Life in general.

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Conclusion
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Wei Zhong
Petrina
Landy
Fang Zheng