Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Monastery and Pagoda at Sravasti

While at Sravasti I came across this interesting monastery, which I'm assuming was built around the 1950s/60s, and started by people from Korea or Japan. The architecture is a fascinating mix of colonial bungalow, typical residential embellishments from the 50s - which include a mix of watered-down art deco and watered-down modernism, Hindu temple elements, early-Buddhist elements, 'East Asian' pagodas and torans etc etc. I especially love the pagoda made of brick and concrete with an octagonal base that could be part of a government or residential building anywhere in India from that time. The 'temple' at the back is very interesting as well!

Monastery buildings




Pagoda




Temple at the back of the complex






Decorated ventilation/light opening

Sravasti

I got a chance to visit Sravasti, an important site pertaining to the life of Gautam Buddha. Of the ancient remains, there are mostly just plinths and foundations of stupas, temples and monasteries, set up in the centuries following the Buddha's life. He is said to have lived and preached here for over two decades.

I didn't spend much time at Sravasti, so did not get too many details of individual structures etc.

Structures in the Jetavan monastery complex


Ghandha Kuti


Monasteries and temples



















Anathapindika's stupa within the city walls of ancient Sravasti


Reconstructed walls of the stupa, with decorations


Sunday, May 01, 2011

Delhi Metro Phase III planned routes map

Google map with updated Delhi Metro phase 3 planned routes. The dark lines are phase 1 & 2 active routes. Lighter lines are planned phase 3 routes. The blue line is the airport express line. Click on the static map below to get to the Google map.

Phase 3 planned routes



The next map shows what the system will look like once phase 3 is complete. The colors on the map match the actual line color-codes (for all known color-codes).

What the system will look like once phase 3 is complete