Gorakhpur
— — the temple city the railways meet at.
Not only on a wall.
“A working city in the eastern plains of Uttar Pradesh, named for the medieval yogi Gorakhnath. The temple complex on its northern edge still draws pilgrims; the railway junction on its southern edge still moves the country. Between them, a city of seven hundred thousand goes about a long Tuesday. The Buddha's last steps were forty kilometres east. — from the studio
Gorakhpur, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Gorakhpur sits in the eastern Terai plain of Uttar Pradesh, about 270 km east of Lucknow and 100 km south of the Nepal border, at the confluence of the Rapti and Rohini rivers. The city is named for the 11th-century yogi Gorakhnath, founder of the Nath sampradaya of Shaiva Hinduism, whose monastery still occupies the northern edge of the city. The urban area holds roughly 700,000 residents and serves as the administrative seat of Gorakhpur District and Division.
The city's year turns around the Gorakhnath Temple. The largest gathering is Makar Sankranti in mid-January, when the Khichdi Mela draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to offer khichdi — a rice-and-lentil dish — at the shrine of Gorakhnath. The fair runs for nearly a month. Mahashivratri in late winter is the second major draw. The temple itself, expanded substantially in the 20th century, is the headquarters of the Nath order and a working monastery, not a museum.
Gorakhpur Junction is one of the largest railway stations in India; its platform, at 1,366 metres, was once the longest in the world. The city is the practical gateway to Kushinagar, 53 km east, where the Buddha is believed to have attained mahaparinirvana around 483 BCE — the Mahaparinirvana Temple holds a sixth-century reclining Buddha. Lumbini, the Buddha's birthplace in Nepal, sits about 100 km north. The best months to visit are November through February.