Entries about temples

Om Banna is a temple located in Pali district near Jodhpur, India, devoted to a deity in the form of a motorcycle.It is located 20 kilometres from Pali and 50 kilometres away from Jodphur on the Pali-Jodhpur highway. The motorcycle is a 350cc Royal Enfield Bullet.

Residents of Chotila village have built a small temple for the motorbike and his dead owner, Om Singh Rathore, also known as Om Banna or Bullet Baba, on National Highway 65 in Pali, Rajasthan.The shrine has a Royal Enfield 350cc bullet enclosed in a glass box with a photo of Om Banna, who died in a road accident around 24 years ago in that same spot.

Over two decades ago, 21-year-old Om Singh Rathore, the son of a local village leader, was on his way home when he met with a fatal accident on the highway. The police hauled away the motorcycle and that’s when the legend began.The bike was not in the police station the next day. It was found at the accident spot. The police took the bike back, this time securing it with chains and deflating its tyres. The story goes that the next morning the motorcycle was again found at the accident spot. Police tried everything possible to stop the bike from being moved. The bike somehow made it to the accident site in the dead of the night.

Thus began the legend of Om Banna, or Bullet Baba, the patron saint of all those who use the highway. Following the incident, villagers in the area build the temple to worship it.

The temple itself is an elevated concrete platform on which is a bust of Rathore. Behind it stands the Bullet, enclosed in a glass case.

Thiksay Gompa or Thiksay Monastery is a gompa (monastery) affiliated with the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It is located on top of a hill in Thiksey village, approximately 19 kilometres east of Leh in Ladakh, India. It is noted for its resemblance to the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet and is the largest gompa in central Ladakh, notably containing a separate set of buildings for female renunciates that has been the source of significant recent building and reorganisation.

The monastery is located at an altitude of 3,600 metres (11,800 ft) in the Indus Valley. It is a twelve-story complex and houses many items of Buddhist art such as stupas, statues, thangkas, wall paintings and swords. One of the main points of interest is the MaitreyaTemple installed to commemorate the visit of the 14th Dalai Lama to this monastery in 1970; it contains a 15 metres (49 ft) high statue of Maitreya, the largest such statue in Ladakh, covering two stories of the building.

Inside
Steps on the right side in the main courtyard leads to the new temple that houses a huge statue of Buddha. The statue was built at the behest of His Highness, the Holy Dalai Lama, when he visited the monastery in 1980. The staue, 15 m tall, is the largest Buddha figure in the Ladakh and took around four years to build. Local craftsmen used clay and gold paint to make this image of Maitreya Buddha or the Future Buddha. Directly above this temple, there is a small room where lamas impart education to local boys. Some of these boys are later chosen to become lama

Coming back to the main courtyard, the steps directly across the new temple will lead upto a wall with murals of two Tibetan calander with Wheel of Life. To the right of this wall is the main prayer room consisting of many handwritten and painted books. A small room right behind the main prayer room houses a huge image of Shakyamuni (the historical Buddha). Two smaller image of Bodhisattava are placed on its side. To the left side is the eleven headed Avalokitesvara. The Lamokhang temple on the rooftop is the place where only males are allowed to enter. The Thiksey library, a repository of numerous volumes, including Kangyur and Stangyur, is also on the top. Currently, the monastery, home to around 80 monks, is the main monastery for atleast ten other significant monasteries of Ladakh. Prominent amongst these are Diskit, Spituk, Likir, and Stok.

Festival
The annual festival of Thiksey is celebrated in the 9th month of the Tibetan Buddhist calendar. The festival is marked by the famous as well as sacred mask dance or Chham.

VIEW FROM THE AIR !!

Tanot is a place located at a distance of 120 Km from Jaisalmer and name Tanot is named on goddess Tanot. One major town Ramgarh falling in between. After Ramgarh, are miles and miles of nothingness and empty sand dunes. The village is close to the border with Pakistan, and is very close to the battle site of Longewala of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

The area has a high average windspeed and as such there are now a large number of wind-based renewable energy projects in the area. The temperatures in the area can go up to 49 °C.

Ranau Village : It appeared suddenly in middle of nowhere surrounded by virgin sandunes.

It is said that during the Indo-Pakistani War, Pakistani Army dropped several bombs targeting the temple but none of the bombs could fall on the temple and large number of the bombs in the vicinity of the temple did not explode.The temple has a collection of the unexploded bombs dropped by Pakistan. The temple has also been shown in Bollywood movie Border.