Upon arriving to Gujarat, I have quickly learned that it plays home to many ancient religious sites.  Luckily, we had plenty of days in our itinerary visiting these mosques and temples and learning stories behind the gods and the religion.  In addition, we also had the pleasure of being guided within these religious sites by Dr. Saroop Dhruv, who is not only director of Darshan, but also one of the leading feminists in India.

In Siddhpur, we visited a site which held a Hindu Temple and Mosque.  It felt very unusual to learn that a temple and a mosque were connected.  But such was the case for the site in Siddhpur.  As Saroop told us that the Mosque held a Hindu Temple within its walls, I began to think how interesting this fact was.  And then I began to ask more questions like were these people practicing Islam and Hinduism concurrently, somehow? Or were there separate Hindus and Muslims that just decided to share the same walls? If such was the case, I couldn’t help but think how beautiful it was that two religions could come together and share one place for worship.  Just viewing and treating the other as a human, not as their religious affiliation.

In Modhera we visited the Sun Temple.  Although we had a visited the Rani Ki Vav Stepping Well in Patan, the first thing in view was a another stepping well in front of the temple.  This one was also extremely big and the amount of carving done on the stone was enough to make an individual feel useless about their accomplishments in life so far.  Saroop also told us stories about the carvings within the Sun Temple walls and explained the stories behind the different Gods, such as Laxmi and the Sun God Surya.  She also pointed out the fact that most of the gods were wearing very little clothing and that some of the carvings illustrated orgies of the gods and Kama Sutra images.  She further explained how we have actually regressed now and have become more prude and less creative; that these ancient carvings show just how open cultures and religions were about sex and human nature.

We had a very interesting experience at Sarkhej Roza, the Mosque.  While looking around at the carvings and intricate detail done to the jalis or the windows and the exquisite marble floors that stretched across the Mosque, we noticed the tomb of the Sheik.  As I was about to enter the room that held the tomb, Dr. Iyer said “you are not allowed to go in.” Upon seeing the look on my face, she followed with “women are not allowed to go in, just men.” I was stricken by the medieval nature of this rule and this was followed by the wave of nausea I usually get when I remembered just how patriarchal religion can be.  As we moved up the stairs and around the corner, there stood the Queen’s tomb.  Not only were both men and women allowed to enter, but her tomb was also a makeshift storage room.  I left Sarkhej Roza with mixed feelings.  Although I had seen a beautiful Mosque, I also saw how ugly the rules within the Mosque can truly be, especially towards women, practicing or not.

We also visited the Jain Temple called Hatheesinh.  This was a new experience for me, considering I had never visited one and what better place to do it than in Gujarat.  We again were accompanied by Saroop, who filled us in on how it is the same god in each carved window cabinet and explained that Jains were the first rebels against Hinduism.  She also explained that men and women can take vows of silence in Jainism and that Jains don’t eat any root vegetables like onions, garlic, etc, because they consider then living organisms.  It was an extremely interesting visit.