Osian – Town of Temples
Osian is a small town halfway between Jodhpur & Jaisalmer. Sitting in the middle of the desert, somewhat off the faster but longer road that connects Jodhpur up to Jaisalmer, its tourist magnets are two lovely temples built during Osian’s years as an important trading center, roughly 12th to 18th century CE. Since we were three traveling together, we had the luxury of our own car & driver, so we were able to stop at Osian on our way up to Jaisalmer…no long story to this one as there was with the temples at Ranakpur, north of Udaipur, which our driver had not understood were on the program until it was a wee bit too late to be practical — hence the Kumbalgarh-and-drive-through-lovely-countryside consolation prize.
…that peacock was photographed with you in mind, Robin. 🙂
…above, Paul sitting by the ‘Be Vegetarian’ lion (?) at the Jain Temple. Jains, for those who don’t know, believe even more than Hindus in not harming any living being; Jain thalis contain no butter or milk products. They also believe the nature of reality was revealed over the milennia by 24 different prophets, culminating in the 24th who established the Jain religion. Jains were often a very important trading and business presence in the towns and cities of what are now Rajasthan and Gujarat.Further below, look for the green parrots below the trident on the Vaishnava (Hindu) temple tower, and the little girl in the Jain temple (daugher or granddaughter of one of the temple gate keepers) with kohl around her eyes – apparently SOP for little girls in lots of Rajasthani families.
(so much world, so little time....) 
Hello Mr. Paul Brockmann.How do you do?I Saw site where you've posted these wonderful pictures and I must say these are just auwsome.The first tag line of this site "SO MUCH WORLD, SO LITTLE TIME" elaborates what you want to say.That's all i wanted to say. have a very beautyful day ahead and journy.Namestey.vineet davejodhpur.E-mail- vineeet_dave@rediffmail.com
January 21, 2010 at 12:04