In early November 2005, I landed at Calcutta airport. It was my first visit to India in about eight years. The new name of Kolkata may be better now. The facilities of the airport also seemed somewhat tidier and more stylish. However, it has not changed that as soon as I stepped out of the airport door, I got surrounded by hustling taxi drivers, who call to charge me exorbitant prices.
My heart was filled with joy. I am finally back in India. I once again have to fight with these annoying but lovely Indian dudes. This situation, to which I had become so accustomed before, was by no means unpleasant for me.
I shrugged them off while grinning and started to walk. Crossing the parking lot and the premises road and keep walking straight outside, I would come to the main road. My usual course was to catch a city bus and head to the city centre there.
Unconsciously, I’m faithfully following the route I used to go on a past budget trip. While grinning at myself again, I took a deep breath. As the main road approaches, the nostalgic scent of India intensifies.
The smell of cheap cigarettes Bidi. The smell of burning dried cow dung. The scent of dhoop incense. The aroma of various spices. The smell of oil for frying samosas and pooris. The aroma of the steam from the chai stall. The smell of the sweat of rickshaw drivers. The perfume fragrance worn by women and the smell of paan chewed by men. The cows that hang out on the streets give off a unique compost smell that can only be smelled at countryside farms in Japan.
The moment I am enveloped by the air that can only be described as the “scent of India”, I always have a strong feeling of “I’m back!”. And it was in Calcutta that I felt this emotion more strongly than anywhere else.
About two years had passed since I watched the program about Kalaripayattu on TV. During this period, strangely enough, several programs introducing Indian martial arts continued at intervals. However, what made me decide to revisit India was a book titled “Unveiled Indian Martial Arts” written by Takeshi Ito, an Asian martial arts essayist.
In the book, he talks about Kalaripayattu in great detail, from history to thought to practical skills. The oldest martial art in the world. A view of the human body that is common to yoga. The Science of Bows “Dhanur Veda”. Among them, what caught my attention most was the anecdote of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen in China.
Bodhidharma was born as the third prince of the Pallava dynasty in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu around 400 AD. As he grew older, however, he developed more religious inclinations, eventually renouncing himself to a Buddhist monk and becoming known as an excellent Zen master after rigorous training.
In his later years, he was asked to travel to China, where he ascended to the Shaolin Temple in the Songshan mountain range and left behind a legend of 9 years of meditating just facing the wall of the cave. At this time, seeing his disciples drop out one after another from the rigorous training, he taught them exercises derived from Indian martial arts in order to increase their physical and mental strength. It is said that this is the origin of today’s Shaolin martial arts.
Although the Shaolin Temple is now famous for its integrated martial arts, its original speciality was stick fighting, Ito said. I remember seeing Shaolin films in which a monk turns a stick in a spectacular manner. Perhaps it was a stick technique introduced by Bodhidharma from India?
Turning Dharma Chakra. 転法輪（Tenpourin/Ja）
It is one of the most important ideas in Buddhism.
After a long period of asceticism, Gautama Siddhartha reached Buddhagaya, where he realised the Middle Path and decided to renounce asceticism. He declared himself not to get up until he got enlightened and entered into deep meditation under the Bodhi tree. He then overcame a stormy inner process and finally became the Buddha (an Awakened One) under the dawn star.
After that, in the land of Sarnath, north of Varanasi, where many spiritual seekers gather, he preached the wisdom of the enlightenment to ascetic practitioners for the first time. This is called the Dharma Chakra Pravartana. For the first time, the wheel of Dharma was turned by the Buddha.
Since then, the Dharma Chakra has become a sacred mark for all Buddhists, which symbolizes both the Buddha himself and the Dharma.
When I was wandering around India studying Buddhism, I spent a lot of time at a Japanese temple called the Dharma Chakra Vihara in Sarnath. The shape of the Dharma Chakra and the episodes related to it left a deep impression on my mind. Maybe that’s why the moment I saw the spinning stick technique on TV, the image of dharma chakra flashed into my mind.
When Ito’s book crystallized the vague image of Indian martial arts in my mind, and at the same time synchronized it with Buddhism, I decided to visit India again. Thus I quit my job at a good timing, and came to Calcutta with full intentions.
Afterwards, I arrived safely at a cheap hotel on Sudder street by changing city bus and subway and enjoyed the town of Calcutta for a few days. Then, while visiting familiar places and people, I headed to my first destination, Rajasthan, which shares a border with Pakistan.
INDIA~The Land of Holy Chakra 
