Places of Worship Weekend Part 2

Last Sunday was part two of our weekend exploring the different faiths around us here in India. We went in to town to visit a Jain temple, a Hindu temple and a Christian church.
Jainism is an ancient religion that originated here in India back in the 9th century BC. Its main tenet is non-violence toward all living beings. At the temple, we met some female gurus, or holy people who were staying there. The wore white cotton robes, like saris wrapped around their bodies and small, white clothes over their mouths so that no living thing would be ingested and killed. They are strict vegans, don’t eat past sundown and don’t use modern devices. They sat on a raised platform and we all sat on the floor in front of them, asking questions about Jainism. This religion was something totally new for most of us sitting on the floor so the students had a lot of questions about Jainism and their practices. They asked good questions and it was a lively discussion between them and the four gurus. After the talk, we were invited to their dining hall for some snacks. There were different kinds of snacks that many of the kids found unusual and didn’t eat which made the servers a little unhappy. The rule is you must eat everything on your plate and not waste anything. Another learning lesson for the YES students.
Our next stop was the Christian church. What we thought was going to be a Catholic church, turned out to be a Protestant church. The reverend spoke with us for about 15 minutes and explained to them the main ideas behind Christianity, how they worship and told them about the rituals of the service. Many students commented that there were similarities between Christianity and Islam so, unlike Jainism, it was more familiar to them. Some students wanted to have the question time be a debate about two religions and asked some rather pointed questions to the reverend which he answered without getting into a debate about basic tenets of two different religions.
The last stop on our tour of places of worship was the Hindu temple. Like Jainism, Hinduism is something quite different from Islam so they found the temple very interesting. There was a priest on hand to answer questions and Mr. Santosh and his nephew Sumit were there to explain the different gods and goddesses and the proper protocol in a Hindu temple. Did you know there are about 33,000 gods and goddesses in the Hindu religion? That was an amazing fact for all of us.
We planned to visit the local mosque but we ran out of time. The students will get to visit the mosque on the first day of Ramadan next week, a more meaningful visit for them. After a trip to a store for some shopping and to buy friendship bracelets for Friendship Day which was last Monday, we headed back to our camp, feeling more enlightened about some of the other religions in the world. As one student put it, “Visiting different places of worship made me ask questions about other religions. It really makes you find out more about your own religion because you can compare your own praying ways with others.”