An adventurous old man and a will to venture into the unknown is what you need to explore Swat
In Mumbai, recently I bought an extremely charming Buddha, seated with several little children on a buffalo that plodded through the grassy countryside. One might call it “Buddha Takes a Holiday”, yet it reminds me of how the 24-year-old Dalai Lama, fleeing from Tibet and badly stricken with fever, finally crossed the Indian border on the back of a dzo, a creature half yak and half buffalo.
Well, surely either form of transport would be far more idyllic than pursuing remnants of Buddhist civilization in the middle-aged Chacha-wallah jeep over the corrugated, generously pot-holed roads of Swat, some of which do double duty as stream beds. Our driver, whom locals affectionately call Chacha, gallantly volunteered that such a bad road forced us to go slowly, thereby giving us the maximum chance to appreciate the beauty around us. Yes Chacha, but if it knocks the breath from one’s body and thus one has to get out every now and then and walk a hundred yards or so to recover, is not that a bit too much of a good thing?
We were en route to Shahi Bagh, which a Buddhist king evidently used to visit. This magnificent area was only last summer opened for tourism, so the bulldozer was chugging valiantly away, making a jeepable road through the hitherto unspoiled mountain greenery. Here and there Chacha pointed out fearfully, windy hilltops where it is said that certain monks used to meditate. Had their concentration cemented them firmly to the spot? And had the king taken his retinue and all his paraphernalia on elephants, horses or donkeys through such difficult terrain, aeons before the bulldozer and its ilk?
Halting where the road ended, miles from Kalam, Chacha guaranteed that lunch was just 10 minutes’ walk away. He said nothing at all about Shahi Bagh. Mind you, but after clambering, plodding and scrambling for ages, each step taking us deeper and deeper into a stonier and stonier wilderness, with hardly a hut betraying human habitation, we found ourselves in a grassy meadow, its beauty enhanced by a placid stream. This, we gathered, was Shahi Bagh, and in truth it was most suitable both for the sprawling camp of a potentate and for the meditation that is so vital to Buddhism. Suitable, I might add, as long as one is dressed for Antarctica, because both freezing rain and stiff breeze assailed us with neither compunction nor Buddhist compassion. The two small, flimsy restaurants perched there offered no shelter whatsoever. What’s more, our chicken karahi was at least as tough an old boot, and the tea was so light on tealeaves that I recalled a Tibetan Buddhist proverb which says, “It’s a tall order to expect meat without bones, or tea without leaves”. Well, we had bones without meat!
Chacha and his hangers-on sat inside a damp, smelly hut, taking their equally meagre repast with visible relish.
Back in Saidu Sharif, my transparency allowed me to see the Swat Museum’s Ghandara collection for the princely sum of Rs20. I had gone there without my shanakuti card. There was no way that they would allow a fair-skinned, blue-eyed Caucasian across the threshold without her paying Rs200! I confronted the museum director. Nothing doing. But when I asked somebody to go and get my card from my husband, the visibly ruffled director capitulated, saying, “Go, Madam! Pay Rs20 and go inside!” Incidentally, Buddhism forbids anger.
Later I fled from Saidu Sharif in search of Buddha in a pick-up truck, with a cherry guide from the museum. Our first stop was Ta-Lo Monastery ruins (now called Butkara), which I’d never have found on joy own, and which “...lies at the eastern end of the ancient capital of Uddiyana Meng-Chi...” or modern-day Mingora. Its great stupa underwent five reconstructions between the 3rd and the 10th centuries BC, but is now a pile of stones, keeping company with headless, armless statues. Two, sadly battered lion-dogs, found at Buddhist temples in male-female pairs, still keep guard — one to the left with its mouth open, reciting the Sanskrit vowel “Om”, and one to the right, mouth shunt, saying the vowel “Om”, meaning “the beginning and the end”. Meanwhile, the great umbrella, signifying majesty, lies on the ground, propped up by a ruined pillar. Even so, circumanbulating the stupa reciting mantras still bears merit.
Then some distance from Mingora, a smart, twenty-minute treck uphill through almond orchards, sparsely fruited mirchi patches, small ploughed fields and over the occasional jumpable stream brought us to Nirvana. There, we gazed at the unchanging, majestic dignity of the meditating Buddha, carved into the face of a huge rack, from whence for almost 2000 years his benign presence had dominated this valley. Meanwhile, a nonchalant billygoat observed us from just above Buddha’s head, before skittering away and jumping nimbly over to the next rock. The inference was that if a cat may look at a king, then a goat may gawp at Gautama, wouldn’t you say?
But we soon had to leave. That’s life. Finding what we seek, we must so quickly part from it. But listen: non-attachment is a major Buddhist precept.
An adventurous old man and a will to venture into the unknown is what you need to explore Swat 
