Stone Giants

Photo by Walter Mason

"Below these bruised and battered countenances...stands a causeway. On either side of it are seated fifty-four stone giants, twenty feet tall as they squat, restraining or, as though taking part in a tug-of-war, pulling at, the long stone serpent with a multiple fan-shaped head, which forms the balustrade. The two opposing teams are recruited, one from the gods, the other from devils, whose sullen, ferocious expressions contrast with the benevolent, calm-eyed determination of their antagonists."

Osbert Sitwell, Escape With Me! (1939)

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

"Buddhism has had an active presence in Cambodia for over 1,500 years, enjoying alternate fortunes of acceptance and rejection by the ruling elite and the wider population. The history of Buddhism in Cambodia is pregnant with assumptions and theories that have gradually been taken as truths, making it very difficult to construct a reliable account of its development."

~ p. 11, "Buddhist Painting in Cambodia" by Vittorio Roveda & Sothon Yem   

Crowded Buddhist Shrine - Long Khanh Temple - Quy Nhon, Vietnam

People often have a romanticised idea of the Buddhist aesthetic. Actually, people hold all kinds of unrealistic notions about many aspects of Buddhism, but the great cliche is that of the clutter-free, ultra-simple, zen-like atmosphere.
I'm here to tell you that Buddhist temples and monasteries are not like that. Especially not in Vietnam.
This is a shrine in a senior monk's room at the largest temple in Quy Nhon City. Actually, as these things go, it's quite restrained - I've certainly seen far more crowded shrines in my time.
But you can see, there's a certain dedication to colour, and plenty to catch the eye.
I actually like my Buddhism like this: colourful, chaotic, unpretentious and appealing directly to common ideas. I love that life in Vietnamese Buddhist monasteries can be chaotic and crowded, the shrines dusty and filled with tat.