It's the late afternoon of our second day in Aurangabad. Yesterday, we visited several of the local sites in and around Aurangabad itself.

Two sites visited yesterday especially interested me. Panchakki (meaning "water wheel") is a pleasant site that includes water channels and pools overhung by a huge banyan tree, an ancient water-driven grain-grinding mill (it reminded me of a very similar water-driven Roman flour mill in the northern Galilee, which I visited in 1977) and a shrine, grave, and adjacent memorial garden for a local Sufi saint, Baba Shah Muzaffar. As we explored the shrine area and garden, local Muslims came and went, offering prayers to the saint. Approaching the shrine myself, I felt deep peacefulness and instant stilling of my "monkey mind." I can't explain the effect of such a place, though I've been reflecting on how to describe it, but it's profoundly palpable, at least for me (K reported it had the same effect on her).

The shrine is one of two places I've visited in India that make me think of the Hindu term tirtha: a crossing place where the veil between the ordinary and the divine is so thin that the divine can be sensed. This term also came to mind when we visited the main Jain temple in Fort Cochi, a deeply peaceful place where all life, including the local pigeons, is honored.

Yesterday, we also visited the Aurangabad caves, a system of caves carved out of a ridge above town in the 6th or 7th centuries A.D. They were inhabited by Buddhist monks, who created carved images of the Buddha and major Boddhisatvas in the rocks in the caves, and then lived and worshipped there for many years. We also could see the small rock cells where the monks lived. These caves, like the much larger and more ornate caves at Ellora that we visited today, were abandoned by the monks centuries ago as Buddhism gradually died out in India during a major Hindu revival (at the same time it died out in India, the country of its birth, it continued to spread into east Asia and Tibet).

Today, we visited the Ellora caves, which were sculpted from a basalt hillside over many years by Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains. These caves are far more extensive and intricately carved than the Aurangabad caves, but I'm glad we saw both. At Ellora, I paid the most attention to the Buddhist caves, which included monastic quarters as well as a huge, high-ceilinged worship hall. Our guide, who is a local Buddhist, chanted the Refuge Vows in Pali ("I take refuge in the Buddha...the Dharma...and the Sangha [community of Buddhists]")--the same vows I'd chanted back in Seattle just last month--near the center of the hall, and her clear voice projected beautifully throughout the hall. A little later, in another of the Buddhist caves, a group of Tibetan woman entered. One by one, as they filed by a sculpture of the seated Buddha, each bowed and placed her hands and forehead on the Buddha's knee for a few moments--love and gratitude evident in the gentle movements of her hands and her bowed head--before filing on. Teachers turn up everywhere!, I thought.

Visiting both the Aurangabad and Ellora caves made me feel grateful for the countless people over the many centuries since the Buddha's time who have kept his teachings alive. Generally, I've felt this appreciation in a conceptual, abstract way, especially when reminded by a teacher. But at the caves, it's so much easier to imagine these early Buddhists and realize how few creature comforts were available to them. Wandering through the caves, one can feel and see their small, rock quarters; the hot, dry landscape that surrounded them; and the chisel-marks and carvings they left behind.