Tag Archives: UNESCO “Respect all religions. Practice your own.” So said a Swami visiting Australia many years ago in interview when asked if he wished to attract people to his Hindu faith. Proselytisation is an alien concept in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Sectarianism violence has played – and still plays – a central […]  “Send us more camels!” Last year when I was in Jordan, that was the exhortation of every second person I met, once they heard I was from Australia (see: Desert Rains and the Seven Pillars). Who knew we actually sell camels to the Middle East? I knew there were feral camels – at least 300,000 […]  Patan, or Lalitpur (ललितपुर), or Manigal, is an ancient Newari city of just over 200,000 people. It sits on the southern plateau of the Bagmati River, eight kilometers south of Kathmandu, and was – up until the conquest and unification in the late 1700s, under Prithvi Narayan Shah, the Gorkha Prince and future King of […]  So much of Ancient Egypt was about one’s relationship to the Gods and the afterlife. And, so much art and architecture dedicated to these relationships remains to be explored today. From the mind-blowing pyramids at Giza (see: Stories in Ancient Stone) to the amazing tombs in the Valley of the Kings (see: The Writing on […]  India is an intensely sensory experience. For me – a Westerner who grew up in a conservative culture of lowered voices and subdued shades in the northern prairie lands of snow and open spaces – the colours, the smells, the heat, and the press of the crowds in India can quickly lead to sensory overload. […] |
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