most of us won't be able to visit India

Most of us won't be able to visit India

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

repost/ edit

Travels from another time and place

This story is about the religion of Jainism which very few Americans know anything about. The followers of this religion seem like very holy people to this writer. The Cleveland museum of Art have several articles of religious art about Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism I recall. Drive up to Cleveland and see them. It's a spiritual journey for those of us who can't visit India.

Science fiction story:

One afternoon while driving home from my job as an assistant professor at Kent State University in Ohio I picked up a man and woman hitch-hiking who were visitors to our area from the future.

The woman began to cry when they realized that they were not in India, but in Northern Ohio, my home. The man was very kind to the woman, but was embarrassed by her tears in front of me. After a while he was able to console her and he then went on to explain his own disappointment to me of their current location; for they had traveled a long time and distance to get to our time and it was very important to them that they see India.

When I understood the importance of their reaching the Country of India I began to offer alternative ways for them to get there. The woman now composed explained that they were honor bound not to travel beyond the immediate area where I picked them up. This was an important tenet of their religion of Jainism, of course originally founded in India; but now a major religion and philosophy in their time and place in the future.

As a compromise, the couple from the future agreed to let me take them to the Cleveland Museum of Art where I observed their bliss at being able to see a few statues and art works of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

We spent a few hours together and unfortunately I knew nearly nothing of Jainism. They in turn knew next to nothing of American culture in my time. They knew of only Henry David Thoreau, curiously of James Dean and they let slip that Lake Erie would expand and sink Ohio, Indiana and most of Pennsylvania sometime in the near future.

I spent a pleasant afternoon with the couple from the future and then dropped them off back by the roadside where I had originally picked them up hitchhiking near Kent, Ohio.

Since I met the couple from the future I have been studying a little of the tenets of their religion Jainism, still practiced throughout the world in my time by a small but holy group of followers. Sometimes as I drive along after work I think of a few of the principles of their religion that they said are still important in their time. Such as : Every soul is potentially divine, and we should regard every being as ourselves and harm no one. It's challenging for me but I am trying to remember those tenets and I try to put them in practice in my daily life.

Although I will never get to India it's nice that I could view artifacts of the religions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism locally at the Cleveland museum of Art a world class museum only a short drive from my home.