Talk:Buddha Hall and Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Buddha Hall

Buddha Hall

Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

For most visitors to the wiki, these iconic places where Osho gives so many discourses and darshans likely need no introduction. That may happen eventually but for now the primary focus is on their early history: when were they built and when did they start getting used for Osho's events?

Osho moved to Pune from Mumbai on Mar 21, 1974. Some preparatory work had been done, stuff moved, living quarters arranged, but there was a whole lot of infrastructure that wasn't in Pune in the beginning and had to be created, including Buddha Hall and Chuang Tzu, sites of so many discourses, darshans and celebrations. Info elsewhere on the net about them is sparse and inconsistent, with some sources putting Buddha Hall's opening in 1975 and some 1977 ...

Even the CD-ROM may not be so reliable in this aspect of its data in Pune One. It has its very first Pune series, My Way: The Way of the White Clouds, as given in Buddha Hall but May 1974 seems too early for a completed Buddha Hall. And it has the next series, a translation of Nahin Ram Bin Thaon, also in Buddha Hall, while the writer remembers all the Hindi series he went to, mostly in 1978, in Chuang Tzu.

Memory of course can be unreliable, so we need to hear from others who (think they) "know" to find some consensus. The question of where Hindi discourses were held is especially tricky, as they certainly were not in Buddha Hall from when it was built, perhaps because attendance was smaller and Osho wanted to keep the more intimate atmosphere of Chuang Tzu for those talks. At any rate, in the wiki for now, we are placing Hindi talks somewhat arbitrarily in Buddha Hall towards the end of Pune One and Chuang Tzu for the early and middle years, with some allowance for high season swings and celebration times. Personal accounts and reliable sources are welcome.

In Pune Two, Buddha Hall underwent a substantial renovation, even getting a new name, Gautam the Buddha Auditorium, and was not in use for much of 1987. The CD-ROM has discourses mostly in Chuang Tzu for that year with a couple of short "tries" in GtBA until back there for good on Dec 22, for discourse three of Om Mani Padme Hum. This all fits with memory, reports and anecdote, so it looks reliable for that period.

One account of the early days has it thus:

"I arrived in late July, '74, and I might have been there for at least a few of the 'White Clouds' series or it might recently have ended by then, not sure. Anyway, Buddha Hall certainly didn't exist then, and the early talks were held at some sort of porch area, quite small really; looking back, remarkably intimate. But that wasn't the darshan area, which was behind the main building, to the left, I think. [Radha Hall?] The meditations and camps also took place in the area behind the main building. By the time I left, towards mid-May, '75, Buddha Hall did exist and Osho was a faraway figure...."

This sounds quite plausible, so we'll go with that for now, hopefully fine-tuning with other reports. -- doofus-9 (talk) 23:14, 1 February 2015 (PST)

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is this Radha Hall ? --Rudra (talk) 15:56, 2 February 2015 (PST)

Chuang Tzu Auditorium

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No, this is Chuang Tzu (in the daytime, from an unusual angle, right by Osho's entrance door off the pic to the right). Radha Hall i only have a vague notion about. I mentioned the name in case it might twig someone's memory. It wasn't used for much in my time there. It was on the side of Krishna House, the main office building, the side opposite Zorba's, on the path/road to Lao Tzu, the side facing Buddha Hall. I think it might have been in occasional use even in Pune Two, perhaps reduced in size, as the bookshop, safe deposit (Kuber!) and other stuff took over the space, but i have a memory of going to an evening with Kaveesha there, or somewhere on that side of Krishna House, in Feb/Mar '88.

That third pic, of White Robe, is surely not Buddha Hall though, is it? Isn't it the new place they built to replace Buddha Hall (which they demolished)? I don't know what they call it, haven't been back since '95. -- doofus-9 (talk) 01:07, 3 February 2015‎

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well, it's Gautam the Buddha Auditorium.

The original Buddha Hall was built in 1975, being a large concrete slab with a tent like structure over it. Over the years, there have been many improvements to the Hall. There was a marble floor laid and a marble podium, then in 1981, when the Commune moved to the United States, the podium was sold.

When Osho returned to Pune in 1986 the Hall was rebuilt again, first as a tent structure, then later in 1987 as a very large, arched tent, said to be the largest in the East. The marble was relaid and a beautiful podium, also marble, built.

Osho had been giving discourse in the same place from 1975 to 1981, and then from 1986 til his death in 1990.

--Rudra (talk) 15:56, 2 February 2015 (PST)

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