After Jaipur and Ajmer I headed further southwest to two very holy places: Ajmer, home of the most important Sufi tomb in the Subcontinent, and Pushkar, home of the world's only Brahma temple. These are some of the fragrant (and tasty!) flowers offered to the saint.
This is pretty much the only picture I felt comfortable taking within the Dargah, the tomb of Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti. The center of the action is beneath the gold and marble dome, a tight space around which crowds circle, making offerings of flowers and getting blessings under scarves - and money to the men who help you do this.
It's a busy old Muslim city seldom visited by tourists.
What really thrilled me was the Adhai-din- ka-jhonpra or Two-and-a-half Day Mosque, supposedly reconstructed at the end of the 12th century CE from the rubble of a Hindu palace or Jain temple (depending what source you consult) in 2.5 days.It seemed like the elder brother of my favorite site in Delhi: the ruined Quwwat-ul-Islam, India's oldest mosque, at Qutb Minar (of which I've just realized I've posted no pictures).
It too was assembled from the rubble of earlier structures - Jain and Hindu temples - and its concertedly jumbled use of these earlier materials put me in mind of one of my very favorite places in the whole world: the Mezquita in Cordoba, another Islamic structure built of pieces of pre-Islamic structures (though itself colonized, more or less successfully, by a platteresque cathedral). I'm not sure what it says about me that I'm so fond of spolia.Anyway, the Jhonpra is twice as tall as the Quwwat-ul-Islam, intact - and still used as a mosque. I was in heaven. Once the midday namaz was over I wandered around as if in an enchanted forest.
As I took pictures a very cute little schoolboy followed me around, and then posed for a photo with his younger brother - outfitted with all the Dargah gear! (I got one of those red and yellow necklaces, too, from my driver.) Not to be outdone, a bevvy of beauties - led by the littlest one! - demanded a picture of them, too!
